Data from: Specialization: a new multidimensional and integrative perspective

Netwotk_information: Information of every interacting network for which the different specialization metrics were estimated from the repository https://www.web-of-life.es/ (except data of lichens). Contains the number of species of both classes of organisms, the total number of species of each networks, the country and the coordinates. 

Lichen_networks: Information of every interacting network for mycobiont species and Nostoc phylogroups of 11 forest across a latitudinal gradient in Chile. Each sheet of the Excel document shows the incidence matrix of each of the forest.

Abstract: Specialization remains as a controversial and ambiguous term in ecology. Although it has been mostly treated as a dichotomic and simplistic classification of specialist and generalist, its nature is more complex. In the case of biotic interactions, the assignation of these labels, is usually based on the number of interacting partners (one or few versus several ones). Here we provide a more precise and objective interpretation of the specialization phenomenon combining three different metrics (partner richness, Simpson’s index, and d’-index) that offer complementary information of specialization. Hence, partner richness is the metric associated with specificity, Simpson’s index with selectivity and d’ index with the discrimination of the interactions.  Consequently, a 3D space is created with the three metrics, in which a symmetrical division of each of the axes into two halves results in eight specialization categories, from entirely specialized to entirely generalized. Additionally, we suggest two different approaches to compare specialization 1) between and 2) within interacting systems. The proposed categories have been estimated in five natural interacting systems (host-parasite, plant-ant, plant-pollinator, plant-seed-disperser, and mycobiont-cyanobacteria) using available data comprising 188 networks with quantitative observations. The categorization proposed indicates the prevalence of a lax specialization, being scarcely specialized the most common category, in which organisms are specialist, unselective and opportunist. This relaxed specialization shows advantages of being specialized, without sentencing specialization to its constraints.  The application of this proposed framework is a useful tool that allows to categorize specialization in a more objective, integrative, and universal way for future specialization studies.