Functional and phylogenetic structure of forest bird assemblages along an Afrotropical elevational gradient

Aim:Â To evaluate community assembly processes, we comprehensively analysed avian functional and phylogenetic diversity along the only complete elevational forest gradient in west-central Africa. We aimed to reveal the signals of environmental filtering and interspecific competition in community assembly and determine whether increases in species richness across elevations are associated with niche space packing or expansion. Location:Â Mount Cameroon, west-central Africa. Taxon:Â Birds. Methods:Â We analysed data on elevational distributions of birds collected within 10 years from the lowland forest up to the treeline. We calculated functional richness, evenness, and nearest neighbour distance, as well as phylogenetic mean pairwise dissimilarity and mean nearest taxon distance. Community assembly processes were inferred from each metric, after controlling for species richness. To estimate the importance of niche packing versus niche expansion, we assessed whether species of species-richer ..., , , # Functional and phylogenetic structure of forest bird assemblages along an Afrotropical elevational gradient [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tdz08kq79](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tdz08kq79) ## Description of the data and file structure **Presence_absence_table.csv** --- presence (1) and absence (0) data of bird species across ten elevational bands (~ 200 m width) from the lowland forest to the treeline. **Functional_traits.csv** ---Â 1) The mean of wing length (mm), tail length (mm), culmen (mm), tarsus length (mm), weight (g) refers to the morphological trait category; 2\) Invertebrates, fruits, leaves (or other plant materials), nectar, seeds, and vertebrates refer to the proportional exploitation of dietary items (Diet traits category); 3\) Ground, low, middle, and canopy refer to the proportional amount of time spent in feeding across each vegetation stratum; 4\)Â Foliage gleaning, bark probing, flycatching, sit-and-wait, ground search, fruit taking, and nectar taking refer...