Ecological character displacement among Nothobranchius annual killifishes in Tanzania

Divergent ecological character displacement (ECD) is the competition-driven divergence in resource use-related phenotypic traits between coexisting species. It is considered one of the primary drivers of ecological diversification and adaptive radiation. We analyzed phenotypic and ecological variation in two African annual killifish species of the genus Nothobranchius; N. eggersi and N. melanospilus in sympatry and N. melanospilus in allopatry. Our aim was to test if allopatric and sympatric populations of N. melanospilus differ morphologically from each other and from N. eggersi, and examine if these differences are consistent with the predictions of ECD. We find that sympatric N. melanospilus differ from allopatric N. melanospilus and differ from N. eggersi more strongly than the latter. Our data satisfy four criteria for demonstrating ECD: Differences in phenotypes between allopatric and sympatric N. melanospilus are greater than expected by chance; the divergence pattern between all..., Fishes and invertebrates were collected from seasonal ponds in Tanzania.The dataset consist of measurements of fish morphological feature, stomach contents and collected invertebrates., , # Ecological character displacement among Nothobranchius annual killifishes in Tanzania

The Dataset comprises of data used in the analysis and results parts of the manuscript entitled \"Ecological character displacement among *Nothobranchius* annual killifishes in Tanzania\" submitted to Evolution.

## Description of the data and file structure

Fishes and invertebrates were collected from seasonal ponds in Tanzania. The dataset consists of measurements of fish morphological features, stomach contents, and collected invertebrates.

Abbreviations

M-A Melanopilus from allopatric ponds.

M-S Melanospilus from sympatric source.

E-S Eggersi from sympatric source. ...