Evolutionary relationship between plants and insects: Insights from island communities

Interactions between plants and insects have long fascinated scientists. While some plants rely on insects for pollination and seed dispersal, insects rely on plants for food or as a habitat. Despite extensive research investigating pair-wise species interactions, few studies have characterized plant and insect communities simultaneously, making it unclear if diverse plant communities are generally associated with diverse insect communities. This work aims to better understand the historical and evolutionary relationships between plant and insect phylogenetic diversity (PD) on islands. We hypothesized that phylogenetically diverse plant communities (i.e. high PD) support diverse insect communities, with the relationship varying with island isolation, area, age, and latitude. Species lists for plants and insects were compiled from the published literature, and plant PD was calculated using ´standardized mean pairwise distance´ (SES.MPD) and ´standardized mean nearest taxon distance´ (SES..., The data were collected using the databases Google Scholar (for papers published from 1945) and JSTOR (for papers published between 1700-1945). We considered all papers containing species lists of plants and insects collected in the same locations. We used the following search terms: 
\"Species list\" OR “SPECIES RICHNESS” OR “SPECIES DIVERSITY” OR “INVENTORY” OR “CHECKLIST” OR “SURVEY” AND ((\"Plant diversity\" OR \"Plant survey\" OR \"Plant community\") AND (\"Insect diversity\" OR \"Insect survey\" OR \"Insect community\")).
Papers focusing on pest insects and/or agricultural studies were excluded as they are not representative of the natural environment. A total of 81 pairs of plant-insect species lists were compiled from 53 publications and book chapters (Supplementary file 1). The papers contained full species lists, with no native and non-native species separated. We excluded one location (Rose Atoll) where both plant and insect species richness is <5.
The final dataset represented a divers..., , # Evolutionary relationship between plants and insects: Insights from island communities

## Description of the data and file structure

The data consists of 1 xlsv files.
The files can be opened using Excel.

\"Supplementary_file_1\" which contains 7 columns. The first is the location of the island. The second is the latitude. The third is the scientific reference to establish the list of plant species for each location. The fourth column is the scientific name of the plant species (according to \"The Plant List nomenclature\"). The fifth column is the scientific reference to establish the list of insect species for each location. Finally, the sixth column is the list of insect species for each location. The seventh column is the scientific reference for the island age.

## Sharing/Access information

Data was derived from the following sources:

For species list:

Borges, P. A. V. (Ed.). (2008). Listagem dos fungos, flora e fauna terrestres dos arquiplagos da Madeira e Selvagens: = A list...