Vertical and temporal specialisation in Amazonian butterflies and evolution of their thermal traits

Closely-related species living in sympatry are often partitioned into divergent ecological niches. Such specialization can be enabled by the evolution of divergent traits enhancing adaptation to different niches. In this study, we investigate the partitioning of closely-related butterfly species into different forest strata and daily activity time and test the effects of such spatio-temporal niches on the evolution of thermal traits. First, using experiments in the field in Amazonia, we precisely characterized the daily activity patterns of nine species of Morpho butterflies, therefore documenting extensive temporal segregation among species and observing significant variations in temperature between their respective niches. Using controlled experiments in the lab, we then tested the thermal tolerance of wild individuals to both hot and cold conditions. The vertical distribution of species (understory vs. canopy micro-habitats) had a significant effect on several thermal traits, even wh..., , # Data from: Vertical and temporal specialisation in Amazonian butterflies and evolution of their thermal traits

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh0q](10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh0q)

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset contains the characterisation of the patrolling times of 9 Morpho species in French Guiana, as well as the results of an array of thermal tolerance experiments to hot (50°C) and cold (-20°C) conditions. Sampling of temperature over 8 consecutive days at the sampling spot is also present. Also, this dataset contains the data and code required to replicate analyses.

### Files and variables

#### File: FiguresTablesCode.R

**Description:** Code for reproducing data analyses and figures of the paper

Annotations are provided throughout the script through 1) library loading, 2) dataset loading and cleaning, 3) analyses, and 4) figure creation.

#### File: Tree.tre

**Description:** Morpho phylogenetic tree, from Chazot et al. 2016.

#### File: Morpho_data....,