Data from: Diverse strategies for tracking seasonal environmental niches at hemispheric scale
Data files
Dec 05, 2025 version files 120.82 KB
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appendix_1.xlsx
104.71 KB
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appendix_2.xlsx
13.75 KB
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README.md
2.37 KB
Abstract
Species depend upon a constrained set of environmental conditions, or niches, for survival and reproduction that are increasingly lost under climatic change. Seasonal environments require species to either track their niches via movement or undergo physiological or behavioral changes to survive. Here we identify the tracking of both environmental niche position and breadth across 619 New World bird species and assess their phylogenetic and functional underpinning. Partitioning niche position and breadth tracking can inform whether climatic means or extremes constrain seasonal niches. We uncover diverse strategies, including the tracking of niche position, breadth, both, or neither, suggesting highly variable sensitivity to ongoing climatic change. There was limited phylogenetic determinism to this variation, but a strong association with functional attributes that differed between niche position and breadth tracking. Our findings imply significant functional consequences for communities and ecosystems as impending climate change affects some niche tracking strategies more than others.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7rs
Description of the data and file structure
Files and variables
File: appendix_2.xlsx
Description: Updates to avian phylogeny. We updated the avian phylogeny of Jetz et al (2012) to the 2021 Clements taxonomy by harmonizing species names, as follows.
Variables
- Old names: names from Jetz et al (2012)
- New names: adjusted names to match 2021 Clements
File: appendix_1.xlsx
Description: Seasonal niche dissimilarity for 619 species of North American birds (sorted taxonomically). Dissimilarity is partitioned into Mahalanobis distance and determinant ratio for both seasonal (breeding/overwintering comparison) and locational (overwintering/winter at breeding sites comparison) dissimilarity. Position and breadth similarity (visualized and used in analyses) was generated from these values by ln-transforming and sign-flipping.
Variables
- Species: Binomial species name
- Common name: common name for species
- Mahalonobis distance (TD): Mahalonobis distance between seasonal niches
- Determinant ratio (TD): Determinant ratio between seasonal niches
- Mahalonobis distance (LD): Mahalonobis distance between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had not moved from breeding location
- Determinant ratio (LD): Determinant ratio between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had not moved from breeding location
- Adjusted Mahalonobis distance (TD): Mahalonobis distance between seasonal niches, standardized and sign-flipped
- Adjusted Determinant ratio (TD): Determinant ratio between seasonal niches, standardized and sign-flipped
- Adjusted Mahalonobis distance (LD): Mahalonobis distance between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had not moved from breeding location, standardized and sign-flipped
- Adjusted Determinant ratio (LD): Determinant ratio between winter niche and hypothetical winter niche if species had not moved from breeding location, standardized and sign-flipped
Code/software
Microsoft excel
Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data:
- n/a
Data was derived from the following sources:
Curated from GBIF, processed to relevant sampling points and generated species-level seasonal niche dissimilarity estimates
- Cohen, Jeremy; Jetz, Walter (2023). Diverse strategies for tracking seasonal environmental niches at hemispheric scale. Global Ecology and Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13722