Ecological traits explain levels of genetic divergence across an environmental barrier among South American birds

To compare the level of mitochondrial divergence between avian populations east and west of the open vegetation corridor (OVC), an environmental barrier that currently isolates the Atlantic Forest from the Andean forests and Amazonia, and assess whether biological attributes can explain the patterns of intraspecific variation observed. We estimated net genetic divergence between populations on opposite sides of the OVC for 71 bird species based on 727 sequences of the mitochondrial gene COI. Species were categorized based on three ecological attributes and two morphological traits. The relationship between divergence and the biological attributes was assessed through generalized linear mixed models and univariate analyses. Divergence between populations on both sides of the OVC tended to be low, implying that nearly all diversification events took place within the Pleistocene, and discordant among species. Differences in habitat specialization were by far the most relevant to explain th..., , # Data from: Ecological traits explain levels of genetic divergence across an environmental barrier among South American birds

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.jh9w0vtpp](10.5061/dryad.jh9w0vtpp)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: Rcode.R

**Description:** R script to perform all statistical analyses as described in the manuscript. It also includes R script to plot the results as depicted in the manuscript. This R script analyzes how ecological traits (habitat, stratum, diet), wing morphology (HWI), and body mass influence DA across species using GLMM and model selection (AICc). It then identifies significant predictors, calculates estimated means, visualizes relationships with plots, and exports the results to Excel.

#### File: Table_2025_71sps.csv

**Description:** data for the R script

##### Variables

* Family: taxonomic family
* Specie: bird species
* HABITAT: forest vs open/edge
* DIET: plan vs animal vs mixed
* STRATUM: canopy vs und..., ,