Data from: The functional roles of species in metacommunities, as revealed by metanetwork analyses of bird-plant frugivory networks

Understanding how biodiversity and interaction networks change across
environmental gradients is a major challenge in ecology. We integrated
metacommunity and metanetwork perspectives to test species’ functional
roles in bird-plant frugivory interactions in a fragmented forest
landscape in Southwest China, with consequences for seed dispersal.
Availability of fruit resources both on and under trees created vertical
feeding stratification for frugivorous birds. Bird-plant interactions
involving birds feeding only on the tree or both on and under the tree
(shared) had a higher centrality and contributed more to metanetwork
organization than interactions involving birds feeding only under the
tree. Moreover, bird-plant interactions associated with large-seeded
plants disproportionately contributed to metanetwork organization and
centrality. Consequently, on-the-tree and shared birds contributed more to
metanetwork organization whereas under-the-tree birds were more involved
in local processes. We would expect that species’ roles in the metanetwork
will translate into different conservation values for maintaining
functioning of seed-dispersal networks.