Effect of organic mulching in potatoes on ground-dwelling predator species [Dataset]
Description
This repository contains data and R code from three large-scale field experiments (2021a, 2021b, and 2022) conducted on organic potato fields near Witzenhausen / Göttingen, Germany, investigating the effects of different organic mulching treatments (triticale/vetch, straw, grass silage) versus unmulched controls on ground-dwelling generalist predators—specifically carabid beetles and spiders. These predators provide essential ecosystem services in agriculture by preying on pests, but their biodiversity is threatened by intensification, pesticide use, and climate change. Arthropods were sampled using pitfall traps, yielding 12,076 carabids (42 taxa) and 2,399 spiders (38 taxa). Organic mulching, particularly with triticale/vetch, significantly increased the abundance of key beneficial species such as Bembidion lampros, B. quadrimaculatum, Poecilus cupreus (carabids), and Erigone atra, E. dentipalpis, Agyneta rurestris (spiders). Community composition differed markedly between mulched and control plots, as shown by NMDS and PERMANOVA analyses, likely due to increased habitat complexity, altered microclimate, and enhanced prey availability under mulch. The dataset consists of species-level arthropod counts. R code is provided for data cleaning, descriptive summaries, mixed model analyses, diversity and ordination analyses, indicator species tests, and visualization (using tidyverse, vegan, glmmTMB, DHARMa, multcomp). These resources enable reproducible analysis of how organic mulching supports beneficial arthropod populations and contributes to integrated pest management.
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Except where otherwised noted, this item's license is described as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International