Small-scale drivers on plant and ant diversity in a grassland habitat through a multifaceted approach

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Biodiversity and Conservation

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Introduction

  1. whether small-scale ecological differences within the same habitat affect plants and ants. Particularly we expected that small-scale differentiation in two different ecosites comprised in Habitat 6210 individuates two ecological contexts, which may affect plant and ant species and trait composition;

  2. the relative relationship among these key groups and the environment, following the framework developed by Frenette-Dussault, Shipley & Hingrat (2013). In particular, we expected that the different environments affect plant community composition and functions, and that the environment influences indirectly ant communities through changes in plant assemblage. This included assessing which ant traits are influenced by the environment too.

Materials and Methods

Study site

Sampling

Data analysis

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Supplemental Information

Sample‐size‐based rarefaction sampling curves.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12517/supp-1

Raw data: raw measurements used for all the analyses.

1) plant community data, with percentage coverage on plot for each species; 2) ant community data, with incidence in plot for each species; 3) plant traits, with mean value of considered traits for the species that accounted for the 80% of cover in each plot; 4) ant traits, with mean value of considered traits for each species occurring in the plots; 5) environmental variables measured at plot level.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12517/supp-2

Additional Information and Declarations

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Michele Mugnai conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Clara Frasconi Wendt conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Paride Balzani conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Giulio Ferretti performed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Matteo Dal Cin performed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Alberto Masoni performed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Filippo Frizzi performed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Giacomo Santini conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Daniele Viciani conceived and designed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Bruno Foggi conceived and designed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Lorenzo Lazzaro conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Field Study Permissions

The following information was supplied relating to field study approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

The area in which we performed the surveys is an ANPIL (Protected Natural Area of Local Interest) defined by Tuscany region. Hence, the area is fully accessible to the public and there is no need of any authorization to visit the area, as well as to perform studies on its territories or to collect sample materials (except for the current legislation on fauna and particular flora species). Our study did not involve the collection of any species of flora and fauna under particular regime of protection.

Data Availability

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

The raw measurements used for all the analyses are available in the Supplemental File.

Funding

The authors received no funding for this work.

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