Effects of phylogenetic distance, niche overlap and habitat alteration on spatial co-occurrence patterns in Neotropical bats and birds

Ecological interactions influence species distributions and provide crucial ecosystem services such as pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control. Human alteration of habitats can modify these interactions, but quantifying such modifications is challenging, especially at larger spatial scales. Here we assessed the potential impacts of habitat disturbance on food competition among Neotropical bats and birds. We did so by first quantifying spatial and phylogenetic trends in co-occurrence frequencies for species pairs in relation to dietary overlap using a novel statistical approach, and then assessing how these trends differed between assemblages in relatively intact and human-altered habitats. For both the bat and bird assemblages, co-occurrence frequencies for species pairs were significantly higher than expected by chance, consistent with habitat filtering, and increased with phylogenetic relatedness, consistent with phylogenetic niche conservatism. After controlling for phylogeny, ..., , , [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zw3r228gw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zw3r228gw)

# **Effects of phylogenetic distance, niche overlap and habitat alteration on spatial co-occurrence patterns in Neotropical bats and birds.**  

 By Aniko B. Toth, John Alroy, S Kathleen Lyons, and Andrew P. Allen

Submitted 15 July 2024

## Description of the data and file structure

This data consists of eight text files, four containing data for bats, and four for birds. 

**[taxon]_samples.txt** : a file containing site metadata including reference number.

    *reference no*- ID number of the source of the record in the Ecological Register

    *sample no*- ID number of the sample containing the record in the Ecological Register

    *contributor*- person who contributed the reference

    *enterer*- person who entered the data into the Ecological Register

    *created*- date the data was entered in the Ecological Register

    *sample name*- name of the site where the sample was taken

    *c...,