Data and R code for: Beyond the tree layer: ground-dwelling ant community metrics as indicators of plantation restoration in a hot-dry valley

This dataset supports the manuscript "Beyond the tree layer: ground-dwelling ant community metrics as indicators of plantation restoration in a hot-dry valley". It contains trap-level records of ground-dwelling ant communities (1,137 records; 20 species; 2,632 individuals) and point-level near-ground microhabitat measurements (canopy closure, litter cover, herbaceous cover, litter depth; 360 records), collected from 12 plots across four habitat types (a minimally managed open shrub-grassland reference, managed and unmanaged Schleichera trijuga plantations, and an Azadirachta indica plantation) in the Yuanjiang hot-dry valley, Yunnan, Southwest China, in the dry (April 2024) and wet (October 2024) seasons. The accompanying R scripts (R 4.3.2) reproduce all statistical analyses reported in the manuscript: mixed-effects models and a negative binomial GLMM (Table 1), Kruskal-Wallis tests (Section 3.1), NMDS with envfit, PERMANOVA and betadisper (Section 3.3, Fig. 1), LCBD/SCBD partitioning (Section 3.4, Fig. 2), and IndVal.g indicator species analysis (Section 3.5, Table 2). See README.txt for variable definitions and run instructions.