DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7rs
title: Data from: Diverse strategies for tracking seasonal environmental niches at hemispheric scale

description: Species depend upon a constrained set of environmental conditions, or
 niches, for survival and reproduction that are increasingly lost under
 climatic change. Seasonal environments require species to either track
 their niches via movement or undergo physiological or behavioral changes
 to survive. Here we identify the tracking of both environmental niche
 position and breadth across 619 New World bird species and assess their
 phylogenetic and functional underpinning. Partitioning niche position and
 breadth tracking can inform whether climatic means or extremes constrain
 seasonal niches. We uncover diverse strategies, including the tracking of
 niche position, breadth, both, or neither, suggesting highly variable
 sensitivity to ongoing climatic change. There was limited phylogenetic
 determinism to this variation, but a strong association with functional
 attributes that differed between niche position and breadth tracking. Our
 findings imply significant functional consequences for communities and
 ecosystems as impending climate change affects some niche tracking
 strategies more than others.
description: Curated from GBIF, processed to relevant sampling points and
 generated species-level seasonal niche dissimilarity estimates
description: # Data from: Diverse strategies for tracking seasonal environmental niches
 at hemispheric scale Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7rs](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7rs) ##
 Description of the data and file structure ### Files and variables ####
 File: appendix_2.xlsx **Description:** Updates to avian phylogeny. We
 updated the avian phylogeny of Jetz et al (2012) to the 2021 Clements
 taxonomy by harmonizing species names, as follows. ##### Variables * Old
 names: names from Jetz et al (2012) * New names: adjusted names to match
 2021 Clements #### File: appendix_1.xlsx **Description:** Seasonal niche
 dissimilarity for 619 species of North American birds (sorted
 taxonomically). Dissimilarity is partitioned into Mahalanobis distance and
 determinant ratio for both seasonal (breeding/overwintering comparison)
 and locational (overwintering/winter at breeding sites comparison)
 dissimilarity. Position and breadth similarity (visualized and used in
 analyses) was generated from these values by ln-transforming and
 sign-flipping. ##### Variables * Species: Binomial species name * Common
 name: common name for species * Mahalonobis distance (TD): Mahalonobis
 distance between seasonal niches * Determinant ratio (TD): Determinant
 ratio between seasonal niches * Mahalonobis distance (LD): Mahalonobis
 distance between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had
 not moved from breeding location * Determinant ratio (LD): Determinant
 ratio between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had
 not moved from breeding location * Adjusted Mahalonobis distance (TD):
 Mahalonobis distance between seasonal niches, standardized and
 sign-flipped * Adjusted Determinant ratio (TD): Determinant ratio between
 seasonal niches, standardized and sign-flipped * Adjusted Mahalonobis
 distance (LD): Mahalonobis distance between winter niche and hypothetical
 winter niche if species had not moved from breeding location, standardized
 and sign-flipped * Adjusted Determinant ratio (LD): Determinant ratio
 between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had not
 moved from breeding location, standardized and sign-flipped ##
 Code/software Microsoft excel ## Access information Other publicly
 accessible locations of the data: * n/a Data was derived from the
 following sources: * [www.gbif.org](http://www.gbif.org)