Dataset: Canopy closure re-establishes ants in young tree plantations, while low soil pH limits ant diversity

It provides the ant community, environmental, and trait data underlying the reported analyses, along with the final model-input datasets needed to reproduce the statistical results directly.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Ground-dwelling ants were sampled by pitfall trapping at two sites: a subtropical tree-diversity experiment (BEF) with manipulated tree species richness (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24 species; four traps per plot, five collection periods), and a nearby secondary forest (CSP) used as a reference/recovery benchmark, sampled with an analogous protocol.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">The 13 files provided include: ant community matrices (wide and long format, trap- and plot-level, for both sites); individual-level morphological trait measurements and size-corrected, species-level morphological trait data; species-level categorical trait-data; plot-level environmental variables for BEF (coordinates, canopy cover, terrain, soil pH, tree richness); the trap-level model-input datasets used to fit the reported generalized/linear mixed models for BEF, with trap-level values for CSP provided for qualitative comparison; and plot-level community-weighted mean trait datasets used in the functional-composition NMDS comparing BEF and CSP.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">A detailed README (included) documents every file, column, and key identifier, and maps each file to the specific analysis it supports in the manuscript.</p>