Seasonally changing interactions of species traits of termites and trees promote complementarity in coarse wood decomposition

Complementary resource use by functionally different species may accelerate ecosystem processes. However, how co-variation in plant traits and animal traits promotes complementarity through temporal plant-animal interactions is poorly understood, even less so in detrital systems, thereby hampering our fundamental understanding of decomposition and carbon turnover. We hypothesized that, in seasonal subtropical forests where termites are major deadwood decomposers, trait complementarity of both termite species and tree species should promote overall deadwood decomposition through different seasons and years. Findings from a four-year coarse wood decomposition experiment involving 27 tree and 5 termite species support this hypothesis. Phenological and mandibular traits of the two most abundant termite species controlled wood decomposition of tree species differing in wood traits, through the seasons over four years, thereby promoting overall deadwood decomposition rates. Our findings indic..., The article describes a detailed study conducted in two forest sites in Zhejiang Province, East China, focusing on the decomposition of logs from various tree species to understand environmental and biological factors influencing wood decay. The study utilized 81 healthy adult trees from 27 species, creating 648 log samples for decomposition experiments. Data collection involved placing logs in designated plots and monitoring them over several years with the help of micro-weather stations to gather information on environmental conditions such as soil temperature, moisture, and wind.
For data on wood decomposition, the study assessed volume loss by visually estimating log surface area reduction using a grid system, and depth measurements in termite tunnels to calculate volume loss. Termite species were identified and quantified to understand their role in decomposition, and their traits like body size and mandibular width were measured to assess their feeding capabilities.
Wood traits we..., , # Data from: Seasonally changing interactions of species traits of termites and trees promote complementarity in coarse wood decomposition

**A. File list**：

wdter_F.csv
termite_coexistence.csv
mass loss_termites.csv
cwm_termites_traits.csv
wood traits.csv
wood mass loss.csv

**B. File descriptions**:

**(1)** For 'wdter_F.csv':
This document contains five key pieces of information.
The first column is 'site', which represents our experimental sampling points, including PT site and TT site.
The second column is 'species', which details the species of 20cm diameter wood used in our decomposition experiments.
The third column is 'WES', which stands for Wood Economic Spectrum; it represents the scores of each species obtained from a principal component analysis of wood traits.
The fourth column is 'Types', which contains information on termite species. There are five dominant termite species listed: DBY is Macrotermes barneyi, RBY is Coptotermes formosanus, SBY is Reticulitermes periflavi...