Dataset for paper entitled "Functional macroinvertebrate diversity stabilizes decomposition among leaf litter resources across a river network"

Complete dataset from the paper entitled "Functional macroinvertebrate diversity stabilizes decomposition among leaf litter resources across a river network" published in Ecological Monographs.del Campo,Rubén,Rosetta C. Blackman,Jan Martini,Thomas Fuß,Lukas Thuile Bistarelli,Mark O. Gessner,Florian Altermatt, andGabriel Singer. 2025. “ Functional Macroinvertebrate Diversity Stabilizes Decomposition among Leaf Litter Resources across a River Network.” <i>Ecological Monographs</i> 95(1): e70010. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.70010See metadata.pdf file for description of the experimental design, methods and details of all data filesGeneral description:In the present work, we investigated the capacity of macroinvertebrate diversity to govern decomposition rates of heterogeneous leaf resources at the river-network scale. The work compiles data of a leaf litter decomposition experiment carried out at 51 sites across a 740 km2 river network (Upper Thur, Switzerland). At every site, we incubated 5 coarse meshbags containing either one of four single leaf species (<i>Populus nigra</i>, <i>Quercus robur</i>, <i>Alnus glutinosa</i>, and <i>Salix caprea</i>)<i> </i>and a mixture of all species. We determined litter decomposition rates of all leaf resources, variation of decomposition among leaf resources (coefficient of variation of mass loss), and the difference between observed decomposition of leaf mixtures and expected values based on decomposition of single species (net diversity effect of leaf litter on mass loss). The dataset includes:3 study response variables: leaf litter decomposition (mass loss and decomposition rates), coefficient of variation of mass loss among leaf litter resources, net diversity effect of leaf litter on mass loss (and its partitioning into complementary and selection effects).Environmental predictors: water physico-chemistry, river hydromorphology, catchment area, stream order, reach slope and percentage of land use in the upper catchment for every sampling site.Metrics to describe composition and diversity of macroinvertebrate community collected in leaf litterbags (taxonomic and functional diversity metrics).Raw data of invertebrate communities (abundance data) and compilation of Tachet traits for found taxa.Shapefile of sampling sites.Shapefile of the derived river network.Additional information and external data sources:The river network was derived using the WatershedTools R package (Talluto 2020) from a digital 25-m resolution elevation model provided by the European Union´s Earth Observation Programme Copernicus (European Environment Agency 2016, https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/geoss/api/records/3473589f-0854-4601-919e-2e7dd172ff50).Land cover was derived from CORINE land cover data (European Environment Agency 2019, https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/copernicus/api/records/71c95a07-e296-44fc-b22b-415f42acfdf0?language=all). Land cover was reclassified into seven classes: artificial areas, agricultural fields, pasture, forest, shrubland, bare rock, and wetlands.References:Talluto, L. V. 2020. WatershedTools: An R Pakcage for the Spatial Analysis of Watersheds. https://github.com/ltalluto/WatershedTools.