Data from: Ecometrics demonstrates carnivoran community dental traits are filtered by climate

Carnivorans, with their diverse diets and unique adaptations such as the
carnassial tooth, offer insights into the connections between functional
traits and the climatic and environmental conditions they inhabit. They
shed light on functional trait-environment relationships at the highest
trophic levels across a broad range of environmental conditions. In this
study, we evaluate the relationship between relative blade length (RBL) of
the lower carnassial tooth, a key dietary adaptation among carnivorans for
slicing and grinding food items, and climate. We propose RBL as an
ecometric trait and test the hypothesis that community-level RBL is
correlated with climate and mediated by environmental effects on food
availability. Our findings show that communities with higher mean and
broader variance of RBL are typically located in warmer and wetter
climates, suggesting a relationship between carnivoran dietary diversity
and climate. Conversely, communities with a lower mean and narrower
variance of RBL predominantly occupy cooler, drier places. This indicates
that community-level carnivoran dietary traits have the potential to serve
as indicators of environmental conditions. Given the robust fossil record
associated with carnivorans, we also show how RBL can be used as a proxy
for reconstructing paleoclimates by examining trait change at seven sites
in North America to estimate changes in temperature and precipitation over
time in relation to changes in carnivoran community assembly.
Understanding the nature of trait-environment relationships can help us
anticipate biological impacts of ongoing environmental change and the
geographic regions at the greatest risk of ecological disruption.