Release from aboveground enemies increases seedling survival in grasslands

Plant enemies can influence plant community assembly and structure. However, it is unclear how insect herbivores and fungal pathogens affect seedling recruitment. Complex interactions with competition and resource availability make it difficult to isolate the effect of enemies. This uncertainty can impede understanding of community assembly drivers, species coexistence, and trophic interactions; and limits hypothesis testing such as the enemy release hypothesis, a key hypothesis in invasion biology. Using a novel species-specific approach, we examine how enemies affect seedling survival and recruitment of 16 grassland species.
We planted seedlings of 16 native species from two functional groups (C4 grasses and non-legume forbs) into two grassland sites (early and mid succession). We hand-painted 1,548 individual seedlings with pesticides (insecticide and fungicide) over the course of one growing season to enforce aboveground species-specific release from enemies, and tested whether it e..., This dataset is based on an experiment carried out at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, Minnesota, USA. In this experiment, seedlings of 16 different species were planted into two naturally occurring grasslands; one early-successional sites and one mid-successional site. The seedlings were treated with either insecticide, insecticide, and fungicide, or a control treatment, and seedling survival was monitored for two months. Relative seedling survival was compared among the three treatments, and correlated with environmental conditions, species-level traits, phylogenetic relatedness, and damage by insects and fungal pathogens., , # Data from: Release from aboveground enemies increases seedling survival in grasslands

Journal of Ecology

*Joshua I. Brian, Harry E. R. Shepherd, María Ángeles Pérez-Navarro, Jane A. Catford*

## Background:

This dataset is based on an experiment carried out at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, Minnesota, USA. In this experiment, seedlings of 16 different species were planted into two naturally occurring grasslands; one early-successional site and one mid-successional site. The seedlings were treated with either insecticide, insecticide and fungicide, or a control treatment, and seedling survival was monitored for two months. Relative seedling survival was compared among the three treatments, and correlated with environmental conditions, species-level traits, phylogenetic relatedness and damage by insects and fungal pathogens.  

The current submission allows for the reproduction of all analyses and figures as described in the paper.

## Data description and file structure:

Th...