Local-regional relationships for taxonomic and functional richness complementarily reveal community assembly

Data included regional and local taxonomic and functional diversity of aquatic insects, and regional and local environmental factors. Data were collected from headwater streams in six mountains across the Pearl River Basin, China’s largest tropical watershed. The six isolated mountains at different elevations: Nanpanjiang (NPJ), Beipanjiang (BPJ), Rongjiang (RJ), Hejiang (HJ), Bejiang (BJ), and Dongjiang (DJ). Each mountain was defined as a region, with eight streams sampled per region, except BPJ, which had seven streams due to limited natural streams in the highlands. In total, 47 streams were sampled. Data were sampled during the dry (November–December 2020) and wet (May–June 2021) seasons.
Macroinvertebrates were sampled using a Surber net (30 × 30 cm, 500 μm mesh) during the dry (November–December 2020) and wet (May–June 2021). Local environmental variables were synchronously measured at each sampling site, including water velocity (Vel), depth (WD), pH, conductivity (Cond), dissolved oxygen (DO), and substrate composition. Water samples were collected for laboratory analysis of chemical variables, including total nitrogen (TN), nitrate (NO3), nitrite (NO2), ammonium (NH4), total phosphorus (TP), phosphate (PO4), silicon dioxide (SiO2), chlorophyll a (Chl), and metal ions such as aluminum (Al), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg). Regional environmental variables, including climate data (annual precipitation [AP] and annual mean temperature [AMT]), were obtained from the WorldClim database (Hijmans et al., 2005). Vegetation coverage was estimated using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (Mazzarino and Finn, 2016).

Files and variables
Description:

Variables
RS: regional taxonomic richness
LS: local taxonomic richness
RFS: regional functional richness
LFS: local functional richness
RS(GC): regional taxonomic richness of gather-collectors
RS(SC): regional taxonomic richness of scrapers
RS(PR): regional taxonomic richness of predators
LS(GC): local taxonomic richness of gather-collectors
LS(SC): local taxonomic richness of scrapers
LS(PR): local taxonomic richness of predators
RFD(GC): regional functional richness of gather-collectors
RFD(SC): regional functional richness of scrapers
RFD(PR): regional functional richness of predators
LFD(GC): local functional richness of gather-collectors
LFD(SC): local functional richness of scrapers
LFD(PR): local functional richness of predators
AMT: annual mean temperature
AP: annual precipitation
TN: total nitrogen
NO3: nitrate
NO2: nitrite
NH4: ammonium
TP: total phosphorus
PO4: phosphate
SiO2: silicon dioxide
Chl: chlorophyll a
Fe: iron
Ca: calcium
Mg: magnesium
Al: aluminum
Zn: zinc
Cu: copper
Temp: temperature
DO: dissolved oxygen
Cond: conductivity
Vel: water velocity
Dep: depth
MSUBSTD: substrate composition
NDVI: normalized difference vegetation index