Data from: Drivers of assemblage-wide calling activity in tropical anurans and the role of temporal resolution

1. Temporal scale in animal communities is often associated with
seasonality, despite the large variation in species activity during a diel
cycle. A gap thus remains in understanding the dynamics of short-term
activity in animal communities. 2. Here we assessed calling activity of
tropical anurans and addressed how species composition varied during night
activity in assemblages along gradients of local and landscape
environmental heterogeneity. 3. We investigated 39 anuran assemblages in
the Pantanal wetlands (Brazil) with passive acoustic monitoring during the
peak of one breeding season and first determined changes in species
composition between night periods (early, mid, and late) using two
temporal resolutions (1-hour and 3-hour intervals). Then, we addressed the
role of habitat structure (local and landscape heterogeneity variables
from field-based and remote sensing metrics) and ecological context
(species richness and phylogenetic relatedness) in determining changes in
species composition (i) between night periods and (ii) across days. 4.
Nocturnal calling activity of anuran assemblages varied more within the
1-hour resolution than the 3-hour resolution. Differences in species
composition between early and late-night periods were related to local
habitat structure and phylogenetic relatedness, while a low variation in
compositional changes across days was associated with low-heterogeneous
landscapes. None of these relationships were observed using the coarser
temporal resolution (3-hour). 5. Our findings on the variation of calling
activity in tropical anuran assemblages suggest potential trades-off
mediated by fine-temporal partitioning. Local and landscape heterogeneity
may provide conditions for spatial partitioning, while the relatedness
among co-signaling species provides cues on the ecological overlap of
species with similar requirements. These relationships suggest a role of
niche dimensional complementarity on the structuring of these anuran
assemblages over fine temporal scales. We argue that fine-temporal
differences between species in breeding activity can influence the outcome
of species interaction and that addressing temporal scaling issues can
improve our understanding of dynamics of animal communities.