The paleobiologic implications of modern nonmarine ecological gradients

In modern nonmarine settings, previous studies have demonstrated the importance of elevation-correlated ecological gradients, but such studies tend to focus on relatively small areas and only one higher taxon. Here, we analyze GBIF occurrence records from a wide variety of taxa across the southeastern United States coastal plain. Many taxa display ecological gradients (gradients in proportional or relative abundance) correlated with elevation, distance to the coast, and latitude. These gradients tend to be steepest within a few tens of kilometers near the coast and at elevations less than 25 m. Some taxa, notably terrestrial mammals, do not display gradients correlated with elevation and distance to the coast. The small sample sizes of these groups and their heterogeneous sampling raise concerns about whether sufficient data exists. Coupled with previous studies of these ecological gradients, their common presence over distances of tens to hundreds of kilometers and elevations of tens t..., The data was downloaded from GBIF and analyzed through a series of R scripts, as described in README, , # Data from: The paleobiologic implications of modern nonmarine ecological gradients

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pc866t1z7](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pc866t1z7)

## Description of the data and file structure

We have submitted our R code for replicating the analyses of this paper. These scripts can be modified easily for use with other taxa in other regions. Four files of R scripts are included (workflow.R, taxa.R, coastalPlainGradients.R, and coastalPlain.R), and their use is described under Code/Software below. We have also supplied a .csv file containing the geographic coordinates of the study area.

We have also submitted supplemental figures (supplementalFigures.pdf) that could not be included in the manuscript owing to space considerations. The first five pages are scatterplots of NMS Axis 1 scores vs. latitude for every taxon that was analyzed, similar to Figures 3 and 4 in the manuscript. The last five pages are plots of NMS axis 1 scores plotted on 0.2° bins of latitude...