Species-habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other community analyses do not detect

Grassland restoration is an important conservation intervention supporting declining insect pollinators in threatened calcareous grassland landscapes. While the success of restoration is often quantified using simple measures of diversity or similarity to a target communities, these measures do not capture fundamental aspect of community reconstruction. Here, we develop species-habitat networks that aim to define habitat level foraging dependencies of pollinators across restored grassland landscapes and compare their value to these more conventional measures of community restoration. We assessed this across Salisbury Plain (UK) which represents the largest area of chalk grassland in N.W. Europe, encompassing six distinct management types aimed at restoration and maintenance of species-rich calcareous grassland. Sites that were previously disturbed or reverting from arable agriculture were comparable in their pollinator abundance and species richness to those of ancient grasslands, altho..., The study took place in the Salisbury Plain Training Area, southern England. It covered six distinct grassland habitats across the area, representing a gradient of plant species richness and flower resources. These included ancient grassland, previously disturbed grassland, recently disturbed grassland, reverting grassland, intensive grazing, and ungrazed grassland.
In 2010, 36 permanently marked line transects (6 × 85 m) were established, one in the center of each habitat plot. Sampling occurred four times between May 30 and September 19, 2011, monthly. Surveys took place between 10:00 and 17:30, coinciding with major pollinator flight periods. The method followed the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (BMS) and adapted for bumblebee surveys. Surveys occurred under standardized environmental conditions (wind speed <5.5 m/s, no rain, temperature >17ºC if cloudy or >13ºC if less than 40% cloud cover). Temperature, sunshine percentage, and wind speed were recorded. It took approximat..., , # Species-habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other community analyses do not detect

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33c)

The dataset is derived from a study conducted in the Salisbury Plain Training Area in southern England, consisting of 36 permanently marked line transects across six distinct grassland habitats. These habitats represent a gradient of plant species richness and flower resource provision. The dataset includes detailed records of pollinator counts, specifying species, and flower abundance in each habitat.

## Description of the data and file structure

The dataset is structured into two separate CSV files, each containing distinct types of information:
**File 1: Interaction Data**

* This file records the interactions between pollinators and flowering plants. It includes detailed counts of pollinators visiting flowers, specifying the pollinator species and the flower species they visited. Each row repres...