Mammalian herbivory indirectly shapes savanna arthropod communities, but only at very low or high levels

Savanna ecosystems support unique biodiversity and provide livelihoods for millions of people. Yet, wild herbivores are in decline due to poaching and land-use change while livestock numbers are increasing. These changes in density and composition alter savanna vegetation. There are likely indirect cascading effects of altered vegetation on savanna arthropods, but our understanding is limited despite their pivotal role in ecosystem functioning. We evaluate how differences in mammalian herbivory affect terrestrial arthropods in a semiarid Kenyan savanna. We sampled ground-active arthropods (focusing on ants) in six herbivory treatments ranging from high-intensity herbivory to complete exclusion of large herbivores. Ant abundance and richness were not affected by herbivory treatments, but the community composition of ants and arthropods differed at extremely high and low levels of herbivory due to indirect impacts on vegetation.

The dataset consists of the raw ant data, the raw arthropod data and the raw vegetation data. The ant data consist of the plot ID, pitfall ID, treatment category and the ant morphospecies with the respecitve count numbers per pitfall trap. The raw arthropod data consist of the plot ID, the treatment category and the arthropods at order level, this data has been pooled togehter across all pitfall traps from the same plot. The vegetation data consist of plot ID, treatment category, and the vegetation parameters grass richness, forb richness, mean hight of standing vegetation, mean percentage of bare ground cover, and tree density per hectare.