Estimated missing interactions change the structure and alter species roles in one of the world’s largest seed-dispersal networks

Ecological interactions between species can affect the performance of individuals, influence ecological and evolutionary dynamics of populations, and ultimately shape community structure.  Therefore, documenting and studying interactions is necessary for a better comprehension of ecological patterns.  Yet, sampling interactions in the field is challenging. Even with extensive sampling efforts we can hardly obtain a comprehensive picture of which species interact with each other. Such missing interactions can produce important gaps that affect how we perceive and interpret the network formed by species interactions and the roles of individual species within those networks. In this study we propose two methods that combine data on species interactions with information on species traits and phylogenies to estimate potentially missing interactions. We use one of the largest datasets on plant-frugivore interactions, depicting thousands of interactions between birds and plants in the Atlantic..., , , # Data for: Estimated missing interactions change the structure and alter species roles in one of the world’s largest seed-dispersal networks

## Description of the data and file structure

There are two kinds of files here:

1\) Two R scripts, one for each method, that detail the working of each the method and allow its reproduction.

2\) 5 Data files needed to run the above scripts. The show 3 types of data:

a) The bird_phylo and plant_phylo are phylogenetic trees for the birds and plant species, respectively.

b)The atlantics_info file is a table with all frugivory interactions recorded through the literature. The \"int_s\" column show how many studies recorded that particular interaction, while the \"n.studies\" column show how many studies recorded the two species, interacting or not. The \"freq\" column is the division of the \"int_s\" column by the \"n.studies\". \"bird.gape\" and \"seed.size\" column show the mean bird gape size and mean seed length (both in millimeters) for those species.

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