Data from: A framework for detecting natural selection on traits above the species level

To what extent can natural selection act on groupings above the species
level? Despite extensive theoretical discussion and growing practical
concerns over increased rates of global ecological turnover, the question
has largely evaded empirical resolution. A flexible and robust
hypothesis-testing framework for detecting the phenomenon could facilitate
significant progress in resolving this issue. We introduce a
permutation-based approach, implemented in the R package perspectev, which
provides an explicit test of whether empirical patterns of correlation
between upper level trait values and survivorship are reducible to
correlations manifested at lower levels. The package is applicable to
virtually any nested set of upper- and lower level groupings, a wide
variety of upper level traits, and both historical and contemporary
occurrence data. We apply this approach to five paleontological data sets
that represent different magnitudes of extinction and differ in taxonomic
breadth, geological timing and geographic extent. Using simulations, we
demonstrate that this method is a robust means of detecting irreducibility
in the relationship between upper level traits and survivorship, and
outline circumstances in which the method is less effective. We also find
evidence consistent with previous findings of selection above the species
level for geographic range size in North American K-Pg molluscs and show
that this phenomenon was evident for the same molluscan genera globally.
Ultimately, we conclude that at certain points in history, some higher
level taxonomic groups have survived differentially with respect to
geographic range size in a manner that is not explained by the same trait
at the species level, and we show that evidence for this phenomenon varies
across taxa and extinction events. We release our method as a flexible and
easy-to-use R package that will allow others to help determine the
relative frequency of this macroevolutionary phenomenon, both in the
fossil record and in estimates of contemporary extinction risk.