Data for: Stratification and recovery time jointly shape ant functional re-assembly in a Neotropical forest

Microhabitat differentiation of species communities such as vertical stratification in tropical forests contributes to species coexistence and thus biodiversity. However, little is known about how the extent of stratification changes during forest recovery and influences community reassembly. Environmental filtering determines community reassembly in time (succession) and in space (stratification), hence functional and phylogenetic composition of species communities are highly dynamic. It is poorly understood if and how these two concurrent filters – forest recovery and stratification – interact.
In a tropical forest chronosequence in Ecuador spanning 34 years of natural recovery, we investigated the recovery trajectory of ant communities in three overlapping strata (ground, leaf litter, lower tree trunk) by quantifying 13 traits, as well as the functional and phylogenetic diversity of the ants. We expected that functional and phylogenetic diversity increase with recovery time and that ..., This data sets contains the raw data and R-script associated with our research article. It contains ant collection data in a chronosequence in Ecuador, as well as measurements of the ant traits. Note that a similar version of the ant and trait dataset has already been uploaded here for another article: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9sk
We collected ants by leaf-litter extraction with Winkler, handsampling on the ground and handsampling on tree trunks on 61 plots. Ants are recorded as  occurrences (=presence/absence) per method per plot (3 methods per plot). The methods represent different strata, and we analyse their traits and phylogeny across stratification and forest recovery. Our files include metadata on the plots, a list of the collected ant species and their occurence in each stratum, and a list of trait measurements on ant individuals. The ant traits were measured from individuals collected in our study site. A description of trait abbreviations can be found in our R-scrip..., Data can be accessed using Excel and R.