Plant community-level herbivory rates, plant, herbivore insect, and land-use metrics from the Exploratories, used in "Reductions of invertebrate herbivory due to land use are only partly explained by changes in plant and insect characteristics"

This is a collated dataset used for the analyses in "Reductions of invertebrate herbivory due to land use are only partly explained by changes in plant and insect characteristics". It contains data on the level of plant communities, i.e. at level of experimental plots (EPs), for both forests and grasslands in all regions of the Biodiversity Exploratories (Schorfheide-Chorin, Hainich-Dün, Schwäbische Alb). For each EP, an average herbivory rate, metrics for taxonomic and functional plant and herbivore insect composition, abundance and diversity are included along with data on land-use intensity (LUI and components in grasslands, ForMI and components in forests). Herbivory rates were measured in 2017–2018, other data come from different years (2008–2018). The data collection/analysis was part of the project FuncNet within the framework of the DFG-funded joint project Biodiversity Exploratories (https://www.biodiversity-exploratories.de).