Raw data and analysis outputs for a fern‑litter manipulation experiment in a neotropical mangrove forest (Bahía Málaga, Colombia)

This dataset contains the raw data and analysis outputs used to generate all figures and tables for a field experiment on the effects of the mangrove fern Acrostichum aureum on sediment carbon pools and benthic macrofauna in a neotropical mangrove forest in Bahía Málaga, Colombia. The experiment manipulated fern litter inputs using four treatments (fern‑litter exclusion, control, procedural control, and mangrove‑litter / no‑fern reference) at three stations along a salinity gradient, with sediments sampled in October 2016 and March 2017 and macrofauna sampled at the end of the experiment. The Excel file includes: (i) macrofaunal abundance by taxon, station, treatment, and replicate; (ii) surface sediment properties (organic matter, organic carbon, C:N ratio, pH, and total dissolved solids) for both sampling dates; (iii) plot‑level changes between dates for each sediment variable; and (iv) summary outputs of multivariate analyses (ANOSIM, PERMANOVA, PCA) corresponding to the supplementary tables of the associated manuscript. These data allow full reproduction of the statistical analyses and visualisations presented in the study and provide a reusable resource for exploring how understory vegetation influences sediment biogeochemistry and benthic macrofaunal assemblages in mangrove ecosystems.The repository also includes an R script for the linear mixed‑effects analyses of sediment chemistry (LMM_sediment_chemistry.R). This script imports sedimentdata.csv, fits mixed‑effects models for each sediment variable (OM, pH, TDS, C:N, OrgC) with Treatment and Time (October 2016 vs March 2017) as fixed effects and Stations and SampleID as random intercepts, performs Type III tests, checks model assumptions, and generates Tukey‑adjusted post‑hoc contrasts and diagnostic plots. Together with the Excel workbook and CSV file, the script enables full reproduction of the univariate and multivariate results and figures reported in the associated manuscript.