Effects of Canopy Nitrogen Deposition on Ant Communities Across Temperate and Subtropical Forests

This dataset supports a long-term experimental study examining the effects of canopy versus understory nitrogen (N) addition on soil animal communities across temperate and subtropical forest ecosystems. The study investigates how atmospheric nitrogen deposition, mediated by forest canopies, fundamentally alters soil biodiversity and trophic dynamics.
The dataset includes comprehensive ecological measurements collected over a decade, encompassing:
Ant Communities: Abundance, species richness, Shannon diversity, and community dominance indices.Ant Functional Groups: Relative abundances of dominant and subordinate taxa, with functional classifications (e.g., generalists, specialists, and predators).Soil Physicochemical Properties: Parameters such as soil pH, total nitrogen, carbon content, and microbial biomass, reflecting soil microhabitat quality.Other Soil Fauna: Abundance, taxonomic diversity, and order-level composition of soil invertebrates, including basal prey such as Collembola.Data were collected under six nitrogen addition treatments (0, 25, and 50 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹), applied either to the canopy (CAN) or understory (UAN), enabling a direct comparison of canopy-mediated versus traditional enrichment approaches. The experimental design provides mechanistic insights into trophic cascades and biodiversity patterns across climatic gradients.
This dataset underpins structural equation models and diversity analyses presented in the associated manuscript, revealing divergent ecological pathways by which nitrogen input restructures belowground communities. It is valuable for meta-analyses, forest biodiversity modeling, and studies in global change ecology.