Temporal variation of soil microarthropods in different forest types and regions of Central Europe

Biodiversity and biomass of aboveground arthropods in Central European forests continuously declined during the last decade. However, whether belowground microarthropod communities follow similar patterns has not been investigated. In this study, we compared the abundance, diversity, community composition, stability and asynchrony of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) sampled in four forest types of increasing management intensity (unmanaged beech, old managed beech, young managed beech, and coniferous) at three-year intervals from 2008 to 2020. Forest sites were replicated in three regions in southern, central and northern Germany, i.e. the Swabian Alb, Hainich-Dün and the Schorfheide Chorin, which differ in soil characteristics and climate. We found 25,152 individuals and 121 species of oribatid mites and detected no linear decline in abundance and diversity over the last decade, suggesting that microarthropods in forest soils are buffered against land-use effects. However, we observed..., Species abundance data for oribatid mites sampled with soil cores from unmanaged beech, managed beech and spruce forests in three regions of Germany at three-year intervals from 2008 to 2020. Excel spreadsheets also contain environmental data and traits used for the analysis (please see methods section and README). , , # oik.10513\_data

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3r2280gqm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3r2280gqm)

\**Oribatida_2008_2020_AJ_nosingles.xlsx (Only sheet 1 is relevant for the analysis) **

Spreadsheet with species that were present in at least two sampling years, to reproduce the second section of the analysis (Community composition, Stability, Synchrony, Variance Ratio, Growth Rates). 

Column informations:

plotyear: Sampling site and year of sampling

Abundance: Rowsums of the species abundance data given in columns \"C\" to \"CW\". 

Columns \"C\" to \"CW\": Currently valid scientific names of oribatid mite species and their individual abundance for each site and sampling year.

LandScape: The three sampling regions in Germany [Swabian Alb (Alb), Hainich Dün (Hai), Schorfheide Chorin (Sch)].

forest.type: Coniferous forests (Conif), near-natural beech forests, unmanaged for at least 60 years, with an approximate tree age of 150 years (B150), actively managed mature stands (approx. 70 yea...