Herbivory and allelopathy contribute jointly to the diversity-invasibility relationship

To construct experimental communities of different species richness (1, 2, 4 and 8 species), we used eight native species (Arctium lappa L., Patrinia villosa (Thunb.) Juss., Achyranthes bidentata Bl., Reynoutria japonica Houtt., Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.-Mazz., Plantago asiatica Ledeb., Platycodon grandiflorus (Jacq.) A. DC., Antenoron filiforme (Thunb.) Rob. et Vaut.). These species were chosen because they are common in natural shrub-grassland communities in the Zhejiang province, China, and two of them, P. villosa and A. bidentata, are usually very dominant in those communities. Solidago canadensis L. was selected as the invader.
In May 2017, we prepared 188 plots of 2 m × 2 m in a previous agricultural field that had been abandoned seven years earlier, in Luqiao (121°23′46.16″ E, 28°31′21.62″ N). During October to December 2016, the top 10 cm of the soil was removed to deplete the seed bank, and the remaining soil was ploughed and repeatedly rotovated to produce a fine soil. In Mar..., Treatments
In the herbivory-reduction treatment, we sprayed the plots with an insecticide. To avoid that the insecticide spray would drift into plots of the non-insecticide treatment, we randomly assigned the four blocks, each with 47 plots, to one of the four experimental treatments (i.e. herbivory reduction, allelopathy reduction, herbivory and allelopathy reduction, no herbivory and allelopathy reduction). Within each block, the monocultures and species mixtures of the native plants as well as the three monocultures of S. canadensis were randomly assigned to different plots. In the blocks with herbivory reduction, we sprayed each plot every 10 days with a 0.5-L solution of Abamectin (1:500, v:v; Hongke Biochemical Co., Ltd, Shijiazhuang city, Hebei province in China), which is a broad-spectrum insecticide. The other plots were sprayed with tap water instead, and the plants in those plots were considered to be fully exposed to herbivory. In the blocks with allelopathy reduction, we ha..., , This Wang_2023_DATA_README.txt file was generated on 2023-11-21 by Jiang Wang

GENERAL INFORMATION

1\. Title of Dataset: Data from: Herbivory and allelopathy contribute jointly to the diversity-invasibility relationship.

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2\. Author Information

Corresponding Investigator

Name: Dr Xiaoyan Wang

Institution: School of Life Science/Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, China

Email: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])
Co-investigator 1

Name: Dr Jiang Wang

Institution: School of Life Science/Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, China

Email: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])
Co-investigator 2

Name: Dr Song Gao

Institution: School of Life Science/Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, China

Email: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])
Co-investigato...