Dataset for Seed predation by reintroduced agoutis reduces seed survival of exotic invasive jackfruit tree

Seed predation by reintroduced agoutis reduces seed survival of exotic invasivejackfruit tree Description of the data and file structure DATA COLLECTIONSeed removal experiments were carried out in 10 sites where agoutis had established homeranges after release (Cid et al. 2014) and 10 sites without the presence of these animals; theminimum distance among points was 200 m. Agoutis’ absence was confirmed using cameratrap surveys, using jackfruit seeds as bait, carried out immediately before the beginning ofthe experiments. Experiments took place in 2014 during the peak (February) and low (July)fruiting seasons of Artocarpus heterophyllus (Abreu & Rodrigues 2010). We applied two treatments to assess the role of different seed predators, open control andselective exclusion. In the open control treatment, seeds were placed directly on the forestfloor, accessible to all terrestrial fauna. The selective exclusion treatment, adapted fromMileri (2012), excluded medium and large mammals (such as D. leporina), allowing accessonly to small rodents. In this treatment, seeds were placed inside PVC pipes (45 cm length,7.5 cm diameter) fixed to the ground. Each site received one station of each treatment,spaced 5 m apart, with five seeds per station. To track seed fate, each seed was attached toa 30-m thread bobbin, which was placed inside a small container attached to a nearby tree.To facilitate identification in case of line breakage, each seed had a numbered tag matchingits numbered container. Experiments were monitored weekly for one month. Seeds werecategorized as either ;predated by vertebrates; or intact (not damaged by vertebrates).Seeds removed from experimental stations but not found were considered as preyed upon.Animals that interacted with seeds in the experiments were identified through camera traps,placed in a subset of sampling points, totaling 380 camera-days.ANALYSESTo test if treatments (open vs. exclusion) and areas (with vs. without agoutis) influencedseed survival, we fitted a Cox proportional hazards model using the ;survival; package in R4.0.1 (R Core Team 2020, Therneau 2020). We used clustering with robust standard errorsat the levels of location and time period to account for the correlation between seeds locatedin the same plot and sampled in the same season. File: Survival_jackfruit_seeds-Data_and_code.zipDescription: R package containing the raw data (data folder) and the code (script) folder.Unzip and open the R.project file so the data can be loaded seamlessly regardless of filelocation. SoftwareR and R Studio