Stratified sampling enhances the understanding of bat–fruit networks in the southern Atlantic Forest

This repository brings together the datasets and scripts used to
investigate bat-plant interactions along the vertical gradient of an
Atlantic Forest in northern Paraná, Brazil. It includes raw and processed
data, as well as R scripts for analyzing ecological interactions. This
dataset was collected to investigate the dissimilarity of frugivorous bat
assemblages, plant species, and their interactions across different forest
strata in a conserved Atlantic Forest environment in southern Brazil. The
data were generated to evaluate whether sampling focused on a single
vertical stratum, such as the understory, provides an accurate or biased
characterization of bat–fruit interaction patterns. Sampling was conducted
monthly between September 2013 and August 2014 in the Salto Morato Natural
Reserve, Paraná state, comprising 12 sampling campaigns and 61 sampling
nights. Bats were captured using mist nets simultaneously deployed in
three forest strata (understory, subcanopy, and canopy), allowing a
stratified assessment of frugivorous bat assemblages, plant species, and
their interactions along the forest vertical gradient. Fecal samples were
collected from captured bats and analyzed to identify consumed plant
species, generating records of bat–fruit interactions for each forest
stratum. The dataset includes raw and processed data used to construct
interaction matrices and quantify patterns of network structure, species
specialization, and interaction dissimilarity among forest strata.