Data from: Nitrogen deposition and multi-dimensional plant diversity at the landscape scale

Estimating effects of nitrogen (N) deposition is essential for understanding human impacts on biodiversity. However, studies relating atmospheric N deposition to plant diversity are usually restricted to small plots of high conservation value. Here, we used data on 381 randomly selected 1-km2 plots covering most habitat types of Central Europe and an altitudinal range of 2900 m. We found that high atmospheric N deposition was associated with low values of six measures of plant diversity. The weakest negative relation to N deposition was found in the traditionally measured total species richness. The strongest relation to N deposition was in phylogenetic diversity, with an estimated loss of 19% due to atmospheric N deposition as compared to a historic N deposition without human influence, or of 11% as compared to a spatially varying N deposition for the year 1880, during industrialisation in Europe. Because phylogenetic plant diversity is often related to ecosystem functioning, we suggest that atmospheric N deposition threatens functioning of ecosystems at the landscape scale.