Ecomorphological convergence following niche shifts in montane ground beetles (Carabidae: Nebria)

Aim: A critical step towards uncovering generalizable patterns of phenotype-niche relationships is understanding how functional traits have evolved as species occupy new habitats. Ecomorphological traits impact how organisms function in their environment and are predictive of habitat use and niche. Studying ecomorphological variation in the context of strong environmental filtering can provide opportunities to understand the role of convergent evolution in forming trait-habitat use patterns. By integrating a molecular phylogeny, habitat use, and morphometrics, this study aimed to understand the role of ancestry and convergent evolution in ecomorphological trait evolution.
 
Location: Montane and alpine streambeds, talus, and snowfields in Holarctic mountain ranges (0-5000 m. above sea level).
 
Time period: 1970-2021
 
Major Taxa Studied: Seventy-nine species comprising three species complexes in the ground beetle genus Nebria (Carabidae: Nebriini).
 
..., Specimens from the California Academy of Sciences were used. Morphometrics were collected by photographing specimens on a Leica camera (Leica AG, 2020) and measured in ImageJ. Silhouettes of morphological features were created in Inkscape (Inkscape, 2020) and analyzed using Fourier decomposition analysis using the R package momocs (Bonhomme et al., 2014). Methods from Sansalone et al., 2020 and Stayton, 2015 were used to test for convergence. The R package RRphylo (Castiglione et al., 2019) was used to assess the rate of trait evolution. The online database Worldclim (Fick & Hijmans, 2017) was used to extract bioclimatic data for species. Google earth (Google Maps 2021) was used to estimate lat/long and elevation of species based on museum locality data. All analyses were performed using R statistical software v4.2.0.1 (R Core Team, 2021)., , # Ecomorphological convergence following niche shifts in montane ground beetles (Carabidae: Nebria)

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m63xsj486](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m63xsj486)

## Description of the data and file structure

\"Ecomorphological_convergence_following_niche_shifts_in_montane_ground_beetles_(Carabidae_Nebria)_all_specimens_no_NA.csv\" contains measurements of each individual specimen.

Included in this file are the variables (in order left to right):

subspecies: Subspecies identifiers

id: An id number to distinguish specimens

sex: The sex of the specimen

pronotum_wide: The pronotum width at the widest point (mm)

pronotum_base: Pronotum width at the posterior end (mm)

elytra_width: Elytron width at the widest point (mm)

elytra_length: Elytron length at the longest point (mm)

scape: Scape length (mm)

elevation: Elevation where the specimen was collected (m)

substrate: Substrate type where the specimen was collected (1 = gravel (<10 cm in diameter), 2 = medium r...,