Higher plant colonisation and lower resident diversity in grasslands more recently abandoned from agriculture

1. Rates of species colonisation and extirpation are increasing in plant communities worldwide. Colonisation could potentially help compensate for, or compound, resident diversity loss that results from global environmental change. 2. We use a multifactorial seed addition grassland experiment to examine relationships between plant colonisation, resident species diversity and key community assembly factors over three years. By manipulating colonist seed rate, imposing disturbance and examining abundance and diversity impacts of 14 formerly absent sown colonists in communities that varied in successional stage and time since agricultural abandonment, we were able to disentangle effects of global change factors (species introduction, novel disturbance and land use change) that are usually confounded. 3. Evidence suggested that cover abundance of sown colonists was most strongly influenced by successional stage of recipient communities, though number of growing seasons was also important fo..., Data provided is the results of a grassland seed addition x global change experiment. The data consists of vegetation surveys conducted over three growing seasons between July 2013 and August 2015, alongside measurements of resource availability. The data provided is focused on the summed abundance of seeded colonists. Data was compiled and prepared into its current form using R version 4.2.2,