Data collected for: The contrasted impacts of grasshoppers on soil microbial activities in function of ecosystem productivity and herbivore diet

Herbivory can have contrasted impacts on soil microbes and nutrient cycling, which has stimulated the development of conceptual frameworks exploring the links between below- and aboveground processes. The “productivity model” predicts that herbivores stimulate microbial activities and accelerate nutrient mineralization in productive ecosystems, while they have an opposite effect in less productive ecosystems. In parallel, the “diet model” predicts that herbivores feeding on conservative plants accelerate nutrient cycling while those feeding on exploitative plants decelerate nutrient cycling, due to changes in litter inputs. Since these two frameworks can lead to conflicting predictions in some cases, experimental evidence combining herbivore diet and productivity is required.
During two consecutive years, we conducted an experiment controlling the presence of three grasshopper species consuming either grasses, forbs or both in twelve natural and managed alpine grasslands of contrasted p...