Contrasting impacts of climbing plants on host tree reproduction in a drought-stressed forest

The uploaded dataset contains all the data to run the analyses and figures of the publication \"Contrasting impacts of climbing plants on host tree reproduction in a drought-stressed forest\". Climbing plants, or climbers, are known to negatively affect the survival and reproduction of tropical and temperate humid forest trees through competition and structural parasitism. These impacts are attributed to their growth strategy, which relies on other plants for mechanical support and allows them to divert resources away from structural investment toward vegetative and reproductive functions. Such negative interactions may ultimately influence the composition and dynamics of plant and animal communities around them. Effects of climbers on hosts may differ in drought-stressed systems because investments in foliage and reproductive structures could favor facilitative interactions, such as abiotic stress amelioration through shading or pollinator attraction through synchronous flowering. Knowle..., We conducted a foot survey of an area of approximately 88,000 square meters in the south-eastern part of the reserve to map potential Crataegus aronia individuals. We visited the research site weekly, starting a couple of weeks before the known flowering time of C. aronia, and recorded the geographical locations of potential individuals using a smartphone GPS. We found a total of 162 individuals throughout the survey and selected 123 individuals for sampling based on the following criteria: they were taller than 1.5 m (shorter individuals did not flower during the study regardless of the presence or absence of climbers, E. Fein pers. obs., and were considered immature); they were free from infestation or overtopped by non-climbing plants; and they had at least one branch 50 cm or longer for quantifying flowering and fruiting. Measurements on selected trees were conducted from the onset of flowering. Individuals identified in the second census following the onset of flowering were includ..., # Contrasting impacts of climbing plants on host tree reproduction in a drought-stressed forest

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.jq2bvq8p1](10.5061/dryad.jq2bvq8p1)

## Description of the data and file structure

We describe and quantify the effect of climbing plants on host reproduction by evaluating flower and fruit production of *Crataegus aronia*, a common tree species in Mediterranean Israel. We assessed the effects of climber cover on the host probability of flowering, fruiting, and final fruit set. Climber cover was negatively related to the host's flowering probability but positively related to the host's fruiting probability and final fruit set. These effects depended on whether the climbers flowered simultaneously with the host. Thus, while climber cover may decrease flowering, some climbers can also enhance fruiting, likely by attracting pollinators. Positive effects of climbing plants on host reproductive output contrast with numerous reports of negative effects in other biomes....,