Data from: Species interactions mediate phylogenetic community structure in a hyper-diverse lizard assemblage from arid Australia

Evolutionary history can exert a profound influence on ecological
communities, but few generalities have emerged concerning the
relationships among phylogeny, community membership, and niche evolution.
We compared phylogenetic community structure and niche evolution in three
lizard clades (Ctenotus skinks, agamids, diplodactyline geckos) from arid
Australia. We surveyed lizard communities at 32 sites in the northwestern
Great Victoria Desert and generated complete species-level molecular
phylogenies for regional representatives of the three clades. We document
a striking pattern of phylogenetic evenness within local communities for
all groups: pairwise correlations in species abundance across sites are
negatively related to phylogenetic similarity. By modeling site
suitability based on species' habitat preferences, we demonstrate
that phylogenetic evenness generally persists even after controlling for
habitat filtering among species. This phylogenetic evenness is coupled
with evolutionary lability of habitat-associated traits, to the extent
that closely related species are more divergent in habitat use than
distantly related species. In contrast, lizard diets are phylogenetically
conserved and pairwise dietary overlap between species is negatively
related to phylogenetic distance in two of three clades. Our results
suggest that contemporary and historical species interactions have led to
similar patterns of community structure across multiple clades in one of
the world's most diverse lizard communities.