Data for: Specialist carabids in mixed montane forests are positively associated with biodiversity-oriented forestry and abundance of roe deer

The ongoing transition within forest management towards more biodiversity-oriented practices, such as close-to-nature forestry and retention forestry, may benefit forest fauna such as forest-specialized ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae). However, it remains unclear how forest carabids are jointly affected by these practices in Central European montane forests, which host particularly sensitive, range-restricted carabid species, and where biodiversity-oriented forestry is widely applied. Moreover, roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), the most common large herbivore in these forests, is intensively managed to reduce browsing pressure, but it is yet unknown how this may affect carabids, alongside the effect of silviculture. On 66 1-ha plots in the Black Forest region of Germany, we sampled carabids with pitfall traps, measured roe deer abundances using camera trapping, and measured several structural variables directly related to close-to-nature and retention practices, as well as variable..., Data on carabid activity-density and species richness was collected from pitfall traps placed in 135 1-ha plots (3 traps per plot), active from April to June of 2020. Relative abundance of roe deer was obtained through camera trapping in the same plots, from spring 2019 to spring 2021. Further details on how these and other variables were measured are provided in the associated article. Further details on the dataset structure and units used are provided in a README file., , # Data for: Specialist carabids in mixed montane forests are positively associated with biodiversity-oriented forestry and abundance of roe deer

This README file describes which data files are available, which are necessary to run the analysis R script, and provides metadata about all variables contained in those data files.
The data was collected on 135 1-ha forest plots in southwestern Germany, each of which contained three pitfall trapping locations. This data was collected within the framework of the Research Training Group [ConFoBi](https://confobi.uni-freiburg.de/en) (*Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple-Use Landscapes of Central Europe*, [Storch et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6003)).

## File structure

* R script to reproduce analysis (carabidae_script.r)
* two data files that the R script uses: one with all plot-level data (alldata_carabids_df.csv) and another with carabid traits and classifications (carabid_traits.csv)
* an additional file: tra...