Data from: Ecological fidelity of functional traits based on species presence-absence in a modern mammalian bone assemblage (Amboseli, Kenya)

Comparisons between modern death assemblages and their source communities
have demonstrated fidelity to species diversity across a variety of
environments and taxonomic groups. However, differential species
preservation and collection (including body-size bias) in both modern and
fossil death assemblages may still skew the representation of other
important ecological characteristics. Here, we move beyond live-dead
taxonomic fidelity and focus on the recovery of functional ecology (how
species interact with their ecosystem) at the community level for a
diverse non-volant mammal community (87 species; Amboseli, Kenya). We use
published literature to characterize species, using four functional traits
and their associated categorical attributes (i) dietary mode (11
attributes; e.g., browser, grazer), (ii) preferred feeding habitat (16
attributes; e.g., grassland, woodland), (iii) preferred sheltering habitat
(17 attributes; e.g., grassland, underground cavity), and (iv) activity
time (7 attributes; e.g., diurnal, nocturnal, nocturnally dominated
crepuscular). For each functional ecological trait we compare the death
assemblage's recovered richness and abundance structure of
constituent functional attributes with those of the source community,
using Jaccard similarity, Spearman's rho, and the Probability of
Interspecific Encounter (evenness). We use Monte Carlo simulations to
evaluate whether these empirical comparisons are significantly different
from expectations calculated from randomized sampling of species from the
source community. Results indicate that although the Amboseli death
assemblage is significantly overrepresented by large-bodied species
relative to the Amboseli source community, it captures many functional
dimensions of the ecosystem within expectations of a randomized collection
of species. Additional resampling simulations and logistic regressions
further illustrate that the size bias inherent to the Amboseli death
assemblage is not a major driver of deviations between the functional
ecological properties of the death assemblage and its source community.
Finally, the Amboseli death assemblage also enhances our understanding of
the mammal community by adding nine species and two functional attributes
previously unknown from the ecosystem.