Endemic fish promote ecological structure in a tropical biodiversity hotspot

Endemic species enrich biodiversity hotspots, but how do they contribute to biodiversity structure at macroecological scales? Here, we argue that classifying endemic species using a framework defined by the complementary axes of taxonomic and functional diversity is key to revealing how these patterns underpin community convergence and divergence; these processes are known to configure communities to be compositionally more similar or dissimilar, respectively. Using the endemic freshwater fish communities of India's Western Ghats Escarpment (WGE), one of the 'hottest' spots of global biodiversity as a test case, we find that geographically widespread, trait-distinct endemics are disproportionately present in the west-flowing basins of the WGE, where they promote overall convergence (i.e., both taxonomic and functional). In contrast, among east-flowing basins, a lower-than-expected occurrence of the same category of species supports taxonomic divergence and functional convergence. We att..., , , # Data from: Endemic fish promote ecological structure in a tropical biodiversity hotspot

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.cc2fqz6fj](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cc2fqz6fj)

## Description of the data and file structure

Basin-wise occurrence and morphological trait data of freshwater fishes of the Western Ghats     

### Files and variables

**This dataset consists of a one main SahyadriFish.zip folder**

SahyadriFish.xlsx: Basin-wise occurrence and morphological trait data of freshwater fishes of the Western Ghats           

**Spatial grain:** Basin at 7-8 Pfafstatter level

**Spatial extent**: The Western Ghats Hotspot Region

**Taxa**: Freshwater Fish

**Database management & Curation**: Rohitashva Shukla, Kartik Shanker, Neelesh Dahanukar, Rajeev Raghavan, J A Johnson, Anuradha Bhat, Vidyadhar Atkore

**Inquiry contact**: Rohitashva Shukla ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]))

**Database file format:** Excel             

**Cite Dataset As**: Shukl...,