The hidden legacy of megafaunal extinction: loss of functional diversity and resilience over the late Quaternary at Hall’s Cave

This dataset contains trait data and R code used in the analysis for the paper “Hedberg, C.P., Lyons S.K., & Smith F.A. (2021). THe Hidden Legacy of megafaunal extinction: loss of functional diversity and resilience over the Late Quaternary at Hall's Cave. Global Ecology and Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13428”

We collected data for eight functional traits (mass, diet, arboreality, cursoriality, soil disturbance, group size, activity period, migration habit) that collectively describe a species’ ecological role and influence on ecosystem processes. With these data, we investigated changes in functional diversity and redundancy of a local mammal community over time at Hall’s Cave, a site in Central Texas with a continuous record from 21,000 years ago to the present. Additionally, we included several common introduced and domestic species to the modern community to test whether they restore some lost ecological function. 

We found that declines in functional diversit...