Herbivory and elevated levels of CO2 and nutrients separately, rather than synergistically, impacted biomass production and allocation in invasive and native plant species

Large parts of the Earth are experiencing environmental change caused by alien plant invasions, rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), and nutrient enrichments. Elevated CO2 and nutrient concentrations can separately favour growth of invasive plants over that of natives but how herbivory may modulate the magnitude and direction of net responses by the two groups of plants to simultaneous CO2 and nutrient enrichments remains unknown. In line with the enemy release hypothesis, invasive plant species should reallocate metabolites from costly anti-herbivore defences into greater growth following escape from intense herbivory in the native range. Therefore, invasive plants should have greater growth than natives under simultaneous CO2 and nutrient enrichments in the absence of herbivory. To test this prediction, we grew nine congeneric pairs of invasive and native plant species that naturally co-occurred in grasslands in China under two levels each of nutrient enrichment (..., , , This zip directory contains data of plant biomass, CO2 concentrations, air temperature and soil moisture.

1. Data of plant biomass under different treatments in our experiment
* NO. random numbers during our experiment;
* OTC: eight open-top chambers (OTCs) in our experiment;
* Treat.R: compartments within the OTCs;
* CO2: treatment include atmospheric CO2 concentration and elevated CO2 concentration;
* Herbivory: treatment of herbivory (with herbivory vs. without herbivory);
* N.add: treatment of nutrient enrichment (low-nutrient vs. high-nutrient);
* Sowing: reproduction modes;
* Species: species identities;
* Genus: genus identities ;
* Family: family identities ;
* Status: plant species invasive status (native vs. invasive);
* Total\_biomass: plant total biomass in each pot, measured in grams;
* RMF: root mass fraction in each pot, ratio data with no dimension.
2. Data of CO2 concentrations under ambient CO2 and elevated CO2 treat...