DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6mbq
title: Data from: Spatially-explicit avian frugivory, fruit availability, and seed rain in a latitudinal gradient of the Americas

description: Network metrics are widely used to infer the roles of mutualistic animals
 in plant communities and to predict the effect of species' loss.
 However, their empirical validation is scarce. Here we parameterized a
 joint species model of frugivory and seed dispersal with bird movement and
 foraging data from tropical and temperate communities. With this model we
 investigate the effect of frugivore loss on seed rain, and compare our
 predictions to those of standard coextinction models and network metrics.
 Topological coextinction models underestimated species loss after the
 removal of highly-linked frugivores with unique foraging behaviors.
 Network metrics informed about changes in seed rain quantity after
 frugivore loss. However, changes in seed rain composition were only
 predicted by partner diversity. Nestedness, closeness, and d’
 specialization could not anticipate the effects of rearrangements in
 plant-frugivore communities following species loss. Accounting for
 behavioral differences among mutualists is critical to improve predictions
 from network models.
description: See methods section in : "Can network metrics predict
 vulnerability and species roles in bird-dispersed plant communities? Not
 without behavior" by  Morán López, Teresa; Espíndola, Walter;
 Vizzachero, Benjamin S.; Fontanella, Antonio; Salinas, Letty; Arana,
 César; Amico, Guillermo; Pizo, Marco; Carlo, Tomas A.; Morales, Juan
 Manuel Morales. Ecology Letters <em>in press</em>.
 Data consists of one Excel file from each study site. Each file
 contains a tab for (1) a diagram of the each grid and the arrangement of
 sampling cells (2) plant transect data around the plot, (3) foraging
 observations of individual birds with information of movements across grid
 cells (10 x 10 meters) of the study sites, (4) fruit availability data per
 week for each of the grid cells of study cites (only ripe fruits ready to
 be eated included in counts). Foraging observations:
 individual birds were followed (focal individuals) and the location (grid
 cell) were foraging ocurred was noted, including the plant species
 consumed and the number of fruits ingested (or the number of fruit pieces
 taken in the case of large fruits eaten in piece-meal fashion).
 Observations lasted 3-5 hours in the mornings or afternoons and included
 2-4 observers. Frugivory were also recodedfor non-focal individuals and
 noted as "incidental". Plant transects: four
 transects at each of three distance classes (100, 200, 300 meters x 2 m
 wide) from study plots were established to sample the abundance of
 ornithocorous plant species beyond the plots. Transects increased in
 length with distance to maintain sampling proportional. At 100 meters they
 were 100 m in length, at 200 meters they were 125 m, and at 300 m they
 measure 175 m in length. The height and canopy diameter of each
 ornithochorous plant species was measured for those plants intersected by
 the transect areas. Plot phenology: ripe fruits were
 estimated within each cell grid once per week. Unripe fruits were not
 counted. Phenology outside plot: ripe fruits were
 tallied in a sample of tagged plant species round the plot every
 week.
description: Weekly data (5-10 weeks) of the ornitochorous (bird-dispersed)
 plant species' ripe fruit avaialbility, bird fruit foraging sequences
 and movements, and seed rain collected within six 1.0 - 1.6 ha study
 sites: Powdermill Nature reserve (Rector PA); Finca Montaña (University of
 Puerto Rico, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico); Morro Calzada (Moyobamba, Peru);
 Oxapampa -Perú (CDS https://www.cds-peru.org/); Rio Claro, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Yao-Yao National Forest, Bariloche, Argentina.