Exotic plantations differ in “nursing” an understory invader: A probe into invasional meltdown

Forest plantations most likely promote exotic plant invasion. Using an in situ monitoring method, this study investigated the traits correlated with growth and reproduction of an understory invader, Phytolacca americana L., and ecological factors including understory irradiance, soil stoichiometry and microbial patterns associated with these traits in different exotic plantations of Robinia pseudoacacia L. and Pinus thunbergii Parl. at Mount Lao, Qingdao, China. We found that the traits of P. americana underneath the R. pseudoacacia stand might be situated at the fast side of the trait economic spectrum. The R. pseudoacacia stand appeared to “nurse” P. americana. Furthermore, we intended to explain the nurse effects of R. pseudoacacia stands by examining their ecological factors. First, the R. pseudoacacia stand created understory light attenuation, which matched the sciophilous feature of P. americana. Second, the soil beneath the R. pseudoacacia stand might benefit P. americana m..., The data were collected in three plots in Mount Lao, Qingdao, China, , # Data from: Exotic plantations differ in “nursing” an understory invader: A probe into invasional meltdown Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn2q](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn2q) ## Description of the data and file structure ### plant_traits_and_ecological_factors.csv Data of plant traits and ecological factors derived from P. americana under two exotic plantations column A: Plot column B: Plant biomass (g) column C: specific leaf area (SLA) (cm2.g^-1^) column D:Leaf nitrogen concentration (leaf N) (mg.g^-1^) column E: Leaf carbon/nitrogen ratio (leaf C/N) (g.g^-1^) column F: Root nitrogen concentration (root N) (mg.g^-1^) column G: Root carbon/nitrogen ratio (root C/N) (g.g^-1^) column H: Irradiance (understory irradiance) (lux) column I: Soil nitrogen concentration (soil N) (mg.g^-1^) column J: Soil carbon/nitrogen ratio (soil C/N) (g.g^-1^) column K: Observed speciesB (soil bacterial observed species) column L: ShannonB (soil bacterial Shannon's index) colu...,