Frugivoria: A trait database for birds and mammals exhibiting frugivory across contiguous Neotropical moist forests

Biodiversity in many areas is rapidly shifting and declining as a consequence of global change. As such, there is an urgent need for new tools and strategies to help identify, monitor, and conserve biodiversity hotspots. One way to identify these areas is by quantifying functional diversity, which measures the unique roles of species within a community and is valuable for conservation because of its relationship with ecosystem functioning. Unfortunately, the trait information required to evaluate functional diversity is often lacking and is difficult to harmonize across disparate data sources. Biodiversity hotspots are particularly lacking in this information. To address this knowledge gap, we compiled Frugivoria, a trait database containing dietary, life-history, morphological, and geographic traits, for mammals and birds exhibiting frugivory, which are important for seed dispersal, an essential ecosystem service. Accompanying Frugivoria is an open workflow that harmonizes trait and taxonomic data from disparate sources and enables users to analyze traits in space. This version of Frugivoria contains mammal and bird species found in contiguous moist montane forests and adjacent moist lowland forests of Central and South America– the latter specifically focusing on the Andean states. In total, Frugivoria includes 45,216 unique trait values, including new values and harmonized values from existing databases. Frugivoria adds 23,707 new trait values (8,709 for mammals and 14,999 for birds) for a total of 1,733 bird and mammal species. These traits include diet breadth, habitat breadth, habitat specialization, body size, sexual dimorphism, and range-based geographic traits including range size, average annual mean temperature and precipitation, and metrics of human impact calculated over the range. Frugivoria fills gaps in trait categories from other databases such as diet category, home range size, generation time, and longevity, and extends certain traits, once only available for mammals, to birds. In addition, Frugivoria adds newly described species not included in other databases and harmonizes species classifications among databases. Frugivoria and its workflow enable researchers to quantify relationships between traits and the environment, as well as spatial trends in functional diversity, contributing to basic knowledge and applied conservation of frugivores in this region. By harmonizing trait information from disparate sources and providing code to access species occurrence data, this open-access database fills a major knowledge gap and enables more comprehensive trait-based studies of species exhibiting frugivory in this ecologically important region.

全球变化致使诸多区域的生物多样性正快速发生演变并持续衰退，在此背景下，亟需开发全新的工具与策略，以助力识别、监测并保护生物多样性热点区域。识别此类区域的有效途径之一是量化功能多样性（functional diversity）——功能多样性衡量群落内物种所具备的独特生态功能角色，因其与生态系统功能存在紧密关联，故而在生物多样性保护中具有极高应用价值。遗憾的是，评估功能多样性所需的功能性状信息往往极度匮乏，且难以在异质数据源间实现统一标准化，而生物多样性热点区域恰恰尤为缺乏这类关键信息。为填补这一认知空白，我们构建了Frugivoria数据库：这是一套面向食果性哺乳动物与鸟类的性状数据库，收录了摄食习性、生活史、形态学及地理学相关性状；食果类群对于种子扩散这一核心生态系统服务具有至关重要的意义。配套该数据库的还有一套开源工作流，可整合不同来源的性状与分类学数据，并支持用户开展空间尺度下的性状分析。本版Frugivoria收录了分布于中美洲与南美洲连续湿润山地森林及邻近湿润低地森林的物种——其中后者专门聚焦安第斯国家。总体而言，Frugivoria包含45,216条唯一性状值，其中既包含新增的性状记录，也整合了现有数据库中的标准化性状值。本次更新共新增23,707条性状值（其中哺乳动物8,709条，鸟类14,999条），覆盖1,733种鸟类与哺乳动物。收录的性状涵盖食性广度、生境广度、生境特化程度、体型大小、性二态性，以及基于分布范围的地理学性状，包括分布区面积、年平均气温与降水量，以及针对分布区计算的人类影响度量指标。Frugivoria填补了其他数据库在性状类别上的空白，例如食性类别、家域面积、世代时长与寿命，并将原本仅针对哺乳动物的部分性状拓展至鸟类类群。此外，Frugivoria还收录了其他数据库未纳入的新描述物种，并统一了不同数据库间的物种分类体系。Frugivoria及其配套工作流可支持研究者量化性状与环境间的关联，以及功能多样性的空间分布趋势，为该区域食果类群的基础研究与应用保护提供核心支撑。通过整合异质数据源的性状信息并提供获取物种分布数据的代码，这一开源数据库填补了一项重大认知空白，为这一生态关键区域内食果类群的基于性状的综合研究提供了有力支持。