Plant-hummingbird interactions in the Atlantic Forest: Current and future projections
Data files
Dec 11, 2025 version files 137.58 MB
Abstract
This dataset provides a comprehensive metaweb of plant-hummingbird interactions in the Atlantic Forest, along with empirical interaction records and projected community structures under present and future climate scenarios. The metaweb compiles known interactions from multiple sources, representing the potential interaction space for the region. The empirical data include observed interactions from field studies, documenting plant species, hummingbird species, and their interactions. The future projections were generated using species distribution models to estimate changes in community composition and interaction networks under future climate scenarios (SSP 5-8.5, 2041-2070 period).
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.djh9w0w9x
Description of the data and file structure
This project provides a dataset on plant-hummingbird interaction networks in the Atlantic Forest, including a metaweb, empirical interaction data, and projected community structures under different climate scenarios.
The dataset has been formatted and processed using R. Before obtaining the community projections, we performed ecological niche modeling for plant and hummingbird species using occurrence data available in public datasets.
This repository includes two R scripts:
- Ecological Niche Modeling Script: This script details the process used to generate the ecological niche models. However, it is not fully reproducible without the occurrence data. If you wish to access these data, you can request them via email.
- Local Interaction Networks Script: This script is used to generate local interaction networks. To run it, you need to download the provided CSV files.
File: Metaweb_of_plant-hummingbirds_interactions.csv
Description: This file contains the metaweb of plant-hummingbird interactions in the Atlantic Forest. The first column lists the plant species, while the remaining columns correspond to hummingbird species. The values in the table are either 0 or 1, indicating the absence or presence of an interaction, respectively.
File: interaction_data_2022-05-31_EPHI_Brazil.csv
Description: This file contains plant-hummingbird interactions* *in the Atlantic Forest recorded by the Ecology of Plant-Hummingbird Interactions project, using camera traps to capture interaction frames. The variables include the revised plant name, the revised hummingbird name, the feeding activity, whether the hummingbird was piercing or not, as well as the site and date of the record. This information was used to construct the metaweb of plant-hummingbird interactions in the region.
File: Plant-Hummingbird_Interactions_from_literature.csv
Description: This file contains plant-hummingbird interactions in the Atlantic Forest based on literature sources. This information was used to construct the metaweb of plant-hummingbird interactions in the region. The columns included in the file are as follows: family, botanical family of the plant species; nature_BR, whether the plant is native (nat), or exotic (exo) in Brazil; nativa_AF, whether the plant is native to the Atlantic Forest (Y= yes, N= no); floweringstart_month, month in which flowering begins; floweringperiod_month, duration of the flowering period, in months; flower_shape, flower morphology, e.g., b= bell, d= dish, f= flag, g= gullet, h= head, s= spurred, t= tube; corolla_length_mm, mean corolla length, in millimeters; corolla_length_mm_sd, standard deviation of corolla length; nectar_volume, mean nectar volume per flower; nectar_volume_uL_SD, standard deviation of nectar volume, in µL; nectar_concentration_brix, mean nectar sugar concentration, in °Brix; nectar_concentration_brix_SD, standard deviation of nectar concentration; Hummingbird, hummingbird species reported interacting with the plant; citation, short citation for the source; reference, full reference for the study; and Source, origin of the data. Cells with NA indicate information that was not available in the original source.
File: Plants_Hummingbirds_communities_in_Future.csv
Description: This file contains the projected communities of plants and hummingbirds in the Atlantic Forest for the future scenario, based on the results of ecological niche modeling. These communities were used to calculate local interaction networks, which were then compared with current local networks to assess the effects of climate change on this system. The file is organized as a site-by-species matrix. The first column contains a numeric identifier for each community. The second and third columns (“X” and “Y”) correspond to the geographic coordinates of the community. All subsequent columns represent plant and hummingbird species, with values indicating whether each species is present (1) or absent (0) in that community. The final column, “Soma”, represents the total species richness of each community (i.e., the sum of all presence values across the row).
File: Plants_Hummingbirds_communities_in_Current.csv
Description: This file contains the projected communities of plants and hummingbirds in the Atlantic Forest for the current scenario, based on the results of ecological niche modeling. These communities were used to calculate local interaction networks, which were then compared with future local networks to assess the effects of climate change on this system. The file is organized as a site-by-species matrix. The first column contains a numeric identifier for each community. The second and third columns (“X” and “Y”) correspond to the geographic coordinates of the community. All subsequent columns represent plant and hummingbird species, with values indicating whether each species is present (1) or absent (0) in that community. The final column, “Soma”, represents the total species richness of each community (i.e., the sum of all presence values across the row).
Access information
Data was derived from the following sources:
- Bosenbecker, Camila, Pedro Amaral Anselmo, Roberta Zuba Andreoli, Gustavo Hiroaki Shimizu, Paulo Eugênio Oliveira, and Pietro Kiyoshi Maruyama. 2023. "Contrasting Nation-Wide Citizen Science and Expert Collected Data on Hummingbird–Plant Interactions." Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation 21 (2): 164–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2023.03.004.
- Correa-Lima, Ana Paula Araujo, Isabela Galarda Varassin, Narayani Barve, and Victor Pereira Zwiener. 2019. "Spatio-Temporal Effects of Climate Change on the Geographical Distribution and Flowering Phenology of Hummingbird-Pollinated Plants." Annals of Botany 124 (3): 389–98. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcz079.
- Iamara‐Nogueira, Joice, Natália Targhetta, Gina Allain, Adriano Gambarini, Alessandra R. Pinto, Ana Maria Rui, Andréa C. Araújo, et al., 2022. "ATLANTIC POLLINATION: a data set of flowers and interaction with nectar‐feeding vertebrates from the Atlantic Forest." Ecology 103 (2). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3595.
- Rodrigues, L., & Rodrigues, M. (2014). Flowers visited by hummingbirds in the open habitats of the southeastern brazilian mountaintops: Species composition and seasonality. Brazilian Journal of Biology, 74(3), 659–676. https://doi.org/10.1590/bjb.2014.0097