Trait-based sensitivity of large mammals to a catastrophic tropical cyclone: DNA metabarcoding data

Extreme weather events perturb ecosystems and increasingly threaten biodiversity1. Ecologists emphasize the need to forecast and mitigate the impacts of these incidents, which requires knowledge of how risk is distributed among species and environments, but the scale and unpredictability of extreme events complicates assessment1–4. These challenges are compounded for large animals (‘megafauna’), which play crucial ecological roles but are hard to study5. Traits such as body size, dispersal ability, and habitat affiliation are among the hypothesized determinants of animals’ vulnerability to natural hazards1,6,7. However, it has rarely been possible to test these propositions or, more generally, to link short- and longer-term effects of weather-related disturbance8,9. Here, we show how large herbivores and carnivores in Mozambique responded to Intense Tropical Cyclone Idai, the deadliest storm on record in Africa, across scales ranging from individual decisions in the hours after landfall..., This archive presents raw and filtered data on the diets of 13 species of large mammalian herbivores and African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in Gorongosa National Park. Data were generated via DNA metabarcoding of fecal samples in three distinct seasons for large herbivores (late-wet, early-dry, and late-dry) and opportunistically for wild dogs. The methods summary below is from Walker et al. (2023); please see that paper for additional details, references, and context. All filtered datasets used in Walker et al. 2023 are deposited here alongside raw DNA metabarcoding data for African wild dog diets and large-herbivore diets in late-wet season 2018 and all seasons in 2019. Raw data for large-herbivore diet datasets also used in Walker et al. (2023) can be found in the following repositories: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sxksn02zc (2018, early- and late-dry season); https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.brv15dvcj (2016, early-dry season).
DNA metabarcoding analysis of wild dog diets. Samples were..., , # Trait-based sensitivity of large mammals to a catastrophic tropical cyclone: DNA metabarcoding data

This dataset contains raw and filtered sequence data derived from metabarcoding DNA extracted from the dung of large herbivores and African wild dogs (*Lycaon pictus*) from Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. Alongside these diet-data files, there are files matching a sample's original name (i.e., that used in the raw diet data files) with its corrected name (i.e., that used in the filtered data files), which derive from genetically testing the samples. It also contains a file describing the use of the floodplain habitat by large herbivore species in Gorongosa National Park, which are derived from aerial count data (see Walker et al. 2023).

## Description of the data and file structure

##### Raw Diet Data Files

*Relevant Files*: Herbivore_Diet_Data_LateWet_2018_Raw.fastq.gz; Herbivore_Diet_Data_LateWet_2019_Raw.fastq.gz; Herbivore_Diet_Data_EarlyDry_2019_Raw.fastq.gz; Herbivore_D...