Data from: The influence of range-wide plant genetic variation on soil invertebrate communities

Plant genetic variation can have far-reaching effects on associated
communities and ecosystems. Heritable variation in ecologically relevant
plant traits is often non-randomly distributed across a species’ range and
can exhibit geographic clines. In the event of range expansions and
migration, previously unfamiliar genotypes may have large impacts on
resident communities and ecosystems due to the introduction of novel and
heritable phenotypic variation. Here we test the hypothesis that
geographic origin of a focal plant genotype has effects on belowground
invertebrate communities using a common garden field experiment. We
sampled soil invertebrates from 103 Oenothera biennis genotypes, which
were collected from across the species’ range and planted into a common
garden field experiment at the northern range limit. We enumerated 24,000
individuals from 190 morphospecies and found that the diversity,
abundance, and composition of soil invertebrate communities varied greatly
among plant genotypes. Despite strong effects of plant genotype, we found
few genetic correlations between plant traits and soil invertebrate
community variables. However, herbivore damage was strongly related to
variation in the soil invertebrate community. Geographic origin of plant
genotypes had at most a weak effect on belowground communities. We
speculate that predicting the extended effects of population movement on
associated communities will require detailed knowledge of the trait
variation occurring within focal species across particular environmental
gradients.