Data for: Soil legacy effects of plants and drought on aboveground insects in native and range-expanding plant communities

Soils contain biotic and abiotic legacies of previous conditions that may influence plant community biomass and associated aboveground biodiversity. However, little is known about the relative strengths and interactions of the various belowground legacies on aboveground plant-insect interactions. We used an outdoor mesocosm experiment to investigate the belowground legacy effects of range-expanding versus native plants, extreme drought, and their interactions on plants, aphids, and pollinators. We show that plant biomass was influenced more strongly by the previous plant community than by a previous summer drought. Plant communities consisted of four congeneric pairs of natives and range expanders, and their responses were not unanimous. Legacy effects affected the abundance of aphids more strongly than pollinators. We conclude that historical climate warming-induced plant latitudinal range expansion and extreme drought contingencies can be contained as soil ‘memories’ that influence pl...