Data for: Apex predator loss amplifies drought-driven shrub mortality and decomposition in drylands.

Apex predators have been extirpated from many ecosystems worldwide, yet the consequences of predator loss for ecosystem functioning under climatic extremes remain poorly understood. We examined how long-term apex predator removal alters trophic and decomposition pathways in Australian drylands where dingoes were either common or functionally absent. Using a natural experiment created by a predator-exclusion fence established in the 1920s, we show that predator removal triggered a four-link trophic cascade, increasing mesopredators, reducing rabbit abundance, and promoting higher shrub densities. Following extreme drought, areas lacking apex predators experienced substantially greater shrub mortality, generating larger pulses of dead woody material. Where shrub densities were highest, termites, the dominant decomposers in drylands, discovered and consumed more woody material, accelerating deadwood decay. Our findings demonstrate that predator loss can reshape ecosystem responses to climatic extremes by altering both vegetation dynamics and decomposition processes, highlighting previously underappreciated links between trophic restructuring and disturbance-driven ecosystem change.