DOI: 10.5061/dryad.s1b7q
title: Data from: Variation in neighbourhood context shapes frugivore-mediated facilitation and competition among co-dispersed plant species

description: 1. Co-occurring and simultaneously fruiting plant species may either
 compete for dispersal by shared frugivores, or enhance each other's
 dispersal through joint attraction of frugivores. While competitive
 plant–plant interactions are expected to cause the evolutionary divergence
 of fruit phenologies, facilitative interactions are assumed to promote
 their convergence. To which extent competitive and facilitative
 interactions among plant species with similar phenological niches are
 controlled by spatial variation in their local abundance and co-occurrence
 is poorly understood. 2. Here we test the hypotheses that when a plant
 species fruits in high densities, large phenological overlap with other
 plant species causes competition for seed dispersers owing to frugivore
 satiation. Conversely, we expect large phenological overlap to enhance the
 dispersal of a plant species fruiting in low densities through attraction
 of frugivores by other species in its local neighbourhood. 3. We test
 these predictions on plant–frugivore networks based on seed removal from
 15 woody, fleshy-fruited plant species by 30 avian and 4 mammalian
 frugivore species across 13 study sites in Białowieża Forest, Poland. 4. A
 null model indicated that fruit phenologies of the regional plant
 assemblage were more differentiated than expected by chance. In the local
 networks, the tendency of plants to share frugivores increased with
 phenological overlap. High phenological overlap reduced the seed removal
 rates, interaction strength (proportion of interactions) and the number of
 partners of plant species fruiting in high densities. Conversely, plant
 species fruiting in low densities mainly profited from high phenological
 overlap with other species. Importantly, the sharing of mutualistic
 partners among co-fruiting plant species was also reflected in their
 co-occurrence. 5. Synthesis. Our study highlights that, in spite of the
 overall signal of competition, frugivore-mediated interactions among
 co-fruiting plant species may consistently promote the establishment and
 persistence of rare species through facilitation. In addition, our results
 suggest that, among other factors, indirect coupling of species through
 shared mutualistic partners might be an important determinant of plant
 community assembly. The coupling through shared mutualists may cause the
 formation of associations among co-dispersed plant species and might
 contribute to the coexistence of species in plant–animal mutualistic
 communities.
description: data_package_AlbrechtEtAl2015_JournalOfEcologyThis data package contains data from the publication: Albrecht, Jörg, Bohle, Victoria, Berens, Dana, Jaroszewicz, Bogdan, Selva, Nuria & Farwig, Nina (2015) Variation in neighbourhood context shapes frugivore-mediated facilitation and competition among co-dispersed plant species. Journal of Ecology. Details about the content of the package can be found in the README.txt file and in the data_description.txt file in the zip folder.dryad_data.zip