Legume and ant polygons for range size analysis and visualization

Mutualism improves organismal fitness, but strong dependence on another species can also limit a species’ ability to thrive in a new range if its partner is absent. We assembled a large, global dataset on mutualistic traits and species ranges to investigate how multiple plant-animal and plant-microbe mutualisms affect the spread of legumes and ants to novel ranges. We found that generalized mutualisms increase the likelihood that a species establishes and thrives beyond its native range, whereas specialized mutualisms either do not affect or reduce non-native spread. This pattern held in both legumes and ants, indicating that specificity between mutualistic partners is a key determinant of ecological success in a new habitat. Our global analysis shows that mutualism plays an important, if often overlooked, role in plant and insect invasions., , All analysis and visualization can be reproduced using the R programming language. The code used in the analysis is found in the GitHub repository for this paper: https://github.com/The-Frederickson-Lab/ant-legume-range, # Ant polygons for range size analysis and visualization

Contact information of the corresponding author:

Name: Pooja Nathan
Affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
University of Toronto, St. George, Toronto, Canada.
Email: [e-mail]

Description:

These files are part of the data used in the manuscript \"Generalized mutualisms promote range expansion in both plant and ant partners\" published in September 2023 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. This dataset contains information on spatial polygons in which various ant species are found, and the polygons themselves in various formats.

The data were assembled using the Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics (GABI) database as part of the Antmaps project by co-authors BG and EPE and their colleagues. For detailed information on how these data were collated, please see https://antmaps.org/about.html

Access this dataset on Dryad: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jm63xsjh6

## Description of the d...