Tree cavity nest productivity datasets for British Columbia (Canada) and Misiones (Argentina), 1995-2018

Datasets used to examine the regional and local factors influencing lifetime productivity (number and richness of occupants) of individual tree cavities across two divergent forest ecosystems: temperate mixed forest in Canada and subtropical Atlantic Forest, Argentina (Cockle et al 2019, Lifetime productivity of tree cavities used by cavity-nesting animals in temperate and subtropical forests, Ecological Applications). We monitored and measured nesting cavities used by birds and mammals over 22 breeding seasons (1995–2016) in Canada and 12 breeding seasons (2006–2017) in Argentina. The data included here support the key findings of our paper: (1) Species richness within cavities increased with number of nesting events at similar rates in Canada and Argentina, in both cases much slower than expected if within-cavity species assemblages were random. (2) Lifetime cavity productivity was strongly related to the cavity’s lifespan, and only weakly or inconsistently related to cavity characteristics selected by individuals in short-term nest-site selection studies. (3) Species turnover among (vs. within) cavities explained most cavity-nester diversity at the landscape scale. (4) in Canada, species accumulation was fastest when sampling across high-use cavities; in Argentina, rates of species accumulation were similar across high- and low-use cavities, and fastest when both high- and low-use cavities were pooled.