Data from: Frugivore biodiversity and complementarity in interaction networks enhance landscape-scale seed dispersal function

1. Animal biodiversity matters for the provision of ecosystem functions
derived from trophic activity. However, the mechanisms underlying this
pattern remain elusive since animal abundance and diversity, which are the
components commonly used for representing biodiversity, provide poor
information about ecological complementarity in species assemblages. An
approach based on species interaction networks may overcome this
constraint. 2. Here, we relate frugivore biodiversity and frugivore-plant
network structure with landscape-scale seed dispersal function. We
sampled, for two years, and at fourteen plots with variable assemblages of
frugivores and plants in the Cantabrian Range (N Spain), data on the
abundance and diversity of frugivorous birds, the consumption of fleshy
fruits of woody plants, and the landscape-scale patterns of avian seed
deposition. As a measure of interaction complementarity in seed dispersal
networks, we estimated the degree to which frugivore and plant species
specialize in their interacting partners. 3. Specialization varied
strongly across the seed dispersal networks of the different plots, being
higher in networks harboring smaller bird species that dispersed mostly
small-fruited plants, and also in networks with late-ripening, dominant
fruiting species dispersed mostly by wintering birds. 4. Bird abundance
markedly affected seed deposition. Plots harboring more birds received a
higher density of dispersed seeds, and showed higher probabilities of seed
arrival and seed deposition in open microhabitats. Bird diversity also had
a positive effect on the density of dispersed seed and, to a lesser
extent, seed arrival probability. Independently of frugivore abundance and
diversity, the density of dispersed seeds increased in plots where seed
dispersal networks showed a higher degree of specialization. 5. This study
considers the structure of interaction networks to re-address the
relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functionality, evidencing
that specialization in frugivore-plant networks drives the large-scale
process of seed dispersal. These results encourage the consideration of
interaction complementarity as an underlying mechanism linking animal
biodiversity and trophic-related functions.