Data from: Past is prologue: host community assembly and the risk of infectious disease over time

Infectious disease risk is often influenced by host diversity, but the
causes are unresolved. Changes in diversity are associated with changes in
community structure, particularly during community assembly; therefore, by
incorporating change over time, host community assembly may provide a
framework to resolve causation. In turn, community assembly can be driven
by many processes, including resource enrichment. To test the hypothesis
that community assembly causally links host diversity to future disease,
we experimentally manipulated host diversity and resource supply to hosts,
then allowed communities to assemble for three years (surveyed 2012-2014).
Initially, host diversity increased disease. Subsequently, host diversity
did not directly alter disease. However, host diversity determined the
trajectory of host community assembly, altering colonization by exotic
host species and richness-independent host phylogenetic diversity, which
together reversed the initial increase in disease. Ultimately,
incorporating the temporal dimension of community assembly revealed novel
mechanisms linking host diversity to future disease.