Global Meta-Analysis of Plant Diversity Effects on Pests and Productivity

316 studies form the basis of a global meta-analysis examining how plant diversity affects pathogen and herbivore performance and plant productivity. The dataset, created by Chenyan Huang and last updated in May 2026, likely contains aggregated results from these studies. It synthesizes evidence on taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic plant diversity across various ecosystems.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between plant taxonomic diversity and pest damage based on the global meta-analysis.
• Analyzing how functional plant traits influence herbivore abundance as described in the study.
• Investigating the link between phylogenetic plant diversity and pathogen performance across ecosystems.
• Testing hypotheses about biodiversity's role in maintaining ecosystem productivity through reduced pest pressure.

Strengths

• Based on a synthesis of 316 individual studies, providing a broad evidence base.
• Examines multiple dimensions of plant diversity (taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic).
• Has a clear, permissive license (CC-BY-4.0) for reuse.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The 924.0 KB size suggests a limited scope, likely containing summary statistics rather than raw experimental data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Meta-analysis aggregating results from 316 published studies.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 07:01:25; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, based on studies across various ecosystems.