Elevational gradients of reptiles: Western Ghats, India

We studied elevational gradients of reptile richness in the southern Western Ghats of India. We tested different hypotheses explaining elevational diversity and examined the major drivers of species richness patterns. We collected data on reptiles using Visual Encounter Survey (VES) methods in each 100 m elvation zones in the Agasthyamalai Hills which has elevation ranging from 100 m to 1500 m a.s.l.. We used 10×10 m quadrats for estimating tree density data that we used in our final analysis. We also collected climatic data such as mean annual temperature and precipitation representing each sampling location as bioclimatic variables influencing species richness. Here we submit all these datasets concerning reptiles (richness and abundance) and bioclimatic variables (along with the R-script for analysis) that we used for  our manuscript titled \"Elevational gradients of reptile richness in the southern Western Ghats of India: evaluating spatial and bioclimatic drivers.\"