From leaves to whole plants: effects of shelter-builders on arthropod communities are stronger in dry seasons

Leaf shelters function as microclimatic refuges, reducing arthropod exposure to climatic fluctuations of surrounding habitats. Although facilitation is expected to increase under stressful conditions, empirical studies investigating the patterns of variation and magnitude of effects of ecosystem engineering at different spatial and temporal scales are still scarce. In this study we evaluated the facilitation consequences of leaf shelter created by gall-inducers on arthropod communities of Miconia ligustroides (DC.) Naudin (Melastomataceae). We evaluated how such effects change at the leaf and plant levels in an environment subject to strong climatic seasonality. The presence of leaf shelters on M. ligustroides increased arthropod diversity and biomass, modified the species composition at both the leaf and plant levels, and in wet and dry seasons. However, the addition of artificial leaf shelters during the dry season showed greater abundance, richness, and biomass of arthropods when com..., The raw data available here were used to run the data proposed in the following methodology. For more details, see the published article, as well as Table 1 and Supporting Information S1.
Data sampling
Leaf scale
To evaluate the effects of leaf shelters on arthropod secondary colonization, 30 plants spaced approximately 10.0 m from each other were marked in the field in February 2020. All plants were between 1.0 and 1.5 m tall and had no flowers and fruits at the beginning of the study. In each plant, two pairs of leaves were selected as treatments (n = 4, artificial leaf rolls), and two pairs of leaves as control (n = 4, expanded leaves). We used different branches for each pair and marked the branches with colored tags (Figure 3).
The treatment pairs consisted of a rolled leaf simulating a shelter created by D. gallaeformans (Figure 2d). We use young, intact, and fully developed leaves to create these artificial shelters. We opted to use intact leaves to create the shelters because th..., , # From leaves to whole plants: effects of shelter-builders on arthropod communities are stronger in dry seasons

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6mqz](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6mqz)

## **Explanations for the raw data tabs can also be found in the last tab (called Metadata) of the available XLSX files**

**Metadata**

**Dataset descriptors**

**1) Leaf level**

| **Variables** | **Description** | **Example** |
| :-------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | :--------------------------------- |
| Plant species | Specific epithet of plant taxa | *Miconia ligustroides* |
| Group | Treatments used in th...