Different diversity mechanisms underlying drought resistance in native and invaded communities

The decline of global biodiversity and the increasing spread of invasive alien plants raise critical questions about how native species diversity and biological invasions interact to influence community resistance to disturbance, particularly global climate change. 
To explore the effects of native species diversity and biological invasions on community resistance to drought, we established experimental plant communities with varying species richness levels (1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 species), introduced the invasive species Symphyotrichum subulatum into half of these communities, and then subjected all communities to no, moderate, or intense drought. 
In both native and invaded communities, community resistance to drought was negatively correlated with biomass of the communities without drought, regardless of species richness. Additionally, lower biomass of the communities without drought was associated with smaller drought-induced increases in root:shoot ratio, which in turn confer..., We constructed experimental plant communities with five levels of species richness (1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 species) on the campus of Taizhou University, Zhejiang Province, China (28°39’ N, 121°23’ E). The fieldwork did not need permission. We used a pool of 16 native plant species commonly found in areas of mixed brush and grassland in nearby valleys and hillsides in Taizhou. We established a total of 46 communities with different species compositions: one monoculture for each of the 16 species, ten two-species mixtures, ten four-species mixtures, nine eight-species mixtures, and one 16-species mixture. Each mixture contained a unique combination of species randomly selected from the species pool. Monocultures and two-, four- and eight-species mixtures were replicated six times. The 16-species mixture was replicated 30 times, resulting in 300 experimental communities. These replicates were randomly assigned to six treatment combinations consisting of three drought levels (no, moderate, and ..., # Different diversity mechanisms underlying drought resistance in native and invaded communities

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.dfn2z35f1](10.5061/dryad.dfn2z35f1)

## Description of the data and file structure

1\. Date of data collection: 2018 and 2019

2\. Geographic location of data collection: Taizhou, Zhejiang, China

### Files and variables

#### File: Wang_2025_data.xlsx

##### Variables

* plot code: Plot name.

* richness: Species number in plot

* invasion: 0 uninvaded, 1 invaded

* drought intensity: 1 moderate drought, 2 intense drought

* species composition: Communities with different composition, 1-49 indicate 49 types of communities with different compositions.

* Dominant species: 0 communities without dominant species, 1 community with dominant species.

* Log original biomass: log (aboveground biomass of communities without drought).

* CDR: log response ratio of biomass of the communities with drought (Biomasswith drought) to biomass of the communities without...,