Mass flowering and flowering asynchrony characterise a seasonal herbaceous community in the Western Ghats
Data files
Mar 25, 2026 version files 116.87 KB
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Dataset_Network_matrices.xlsx
17.85 KB
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Dataset_phenology.xlsx
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File_1.txt
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File_2.txt
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File_3.txt
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File_4.txt
15.99 KB
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File_5.txt
9.37 KB
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File_6.txt
6.19 KB
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key_abbreviated_species_IDs.csv
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README.md
12.87 KB
Abstract
Flowering synchrony within a community may be facilitated by climatic factors and by ecological interactions that promote shared pollination services. In contrast, flowering asynchrony is promoted when there is inter-species competition for pollinators. In this multiyear study, we analyse the flowering phenology of a seasonal, herbaceous community (Kaas plateau) in the Western Ghats, India to identify environmental constraints that may influence flowering synchrony. We addressed the following questions: (a) Is flowering seasonality correlated with climatic factors? (b) Is there evidence for flowering synchrony within the community?, and (c) Do plant-pollinator interactions shift with flowering phenology? In Kaas, we recorded flowering phenology of 76 herbaceous species and found that climatic factors influenced their flowering phenology. We also identified the community to be composed of a few mass flowering (MF) species (~30%) and several non-mass flowering (nMF) species (~70%). Using two novel synchrony indices, temporal overlap (SItemp) and synchrony in abundance (SIabd), we also identified higher asynchronous flowering within the community than expected. Notably, species sharing the same floral color, showed marked absence of synchrony, thus suggesting that competition and not pollinator-mediated facilitation drives flowering asynchrony within Kaas. Finally, pollination networks were observed to shift with flowering abundances within the community. Our findings reveal that even seasonal landscapes like the laterite plateaus, despite their short flowering season that last only 4-5 months, exhibit an overall asynchronous flowering phenology. The Kaas plateau, famous for its spectacular flowering displays, achieves this apparent synchrony primarily through a few mass flowering species that vary across years.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.h9w0vt4w0
Codes and data used in the Biotropica manuscript BITR-24-342.R2
Authors: Saket Shrotri1, Sukhraj Kaur1, Rahul Dhargalkar1, Najla PV1, and Vinita Gowda1#.
Affiliation: 1Tropical Ecology and Evolution (TrEE) Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, 462066.
Corresponding author: gowdav@iiserb.ac.in
General Overview:
This dataset contains the data used for analyses of flowering phenology and plant-pollinator interaction structure in a seasonal herbaceous community on the Kaas plateau, Western Ghats, India. The deposited data are organized in two Excel workbooks:
1. Dataset_phenology.xlsx
This workbook contains flowering phenology observations for three years (2018, 2019, and 2020). It also contains plant-pollinator network data in both matrix and long format.
2. Dataset_Network_matrices.xlsx
This workbook contains the plant-pollinator network data only. The network sheets in this file duplicate the network sheets included in Dataset_phenology.xlsx.
The data support analyses of:
- flowering phenology across three field seasons,
- classification of species as mass-flowering (MF) or non-mass-flowering (nMF),
- seasonal plant-pollinator network structure across pre-peak, peak, and post-peak flowering periods,
- cumulative network structure across the study period.
Description of files and sheet structure
FILE 1: Dataset_phenology.xlsx
Sheet 1: Phenology_2018
Description:
Flower abundance observations for each plant species in 2018. Each row corresponds to one species. Columns from Aug_II onward represent observation rounds within the flowering season. Cell values are the observed flowering abundance for that species at that sampling interval.
Variables:
- Year: Year of observation (2018).
- Colour_groups: Floral colour category assigned to the species.
- Species_code: Abbreviated species identifier used consistently across files.
- MF_nMF: Classification of species as mass-flowering (MF) or non-mass-flowering (nMF).
- Aug_II, Sept_I, Sept_II, Oct_I, Oct_II, Dec_II: Sampling rounds in chronological order. The month is followed by a Roman numeral indicating the sampling interval within that month (for example, I = first interval, II = second interval, III = third interval where present). Values are flowering abundance recorded for the species in that interval.
Sheet 2: Phenology_2019
Description:
Flower abundance observations for each plant species in 2019. Each row corresponds to one species. Columns from Aug_II onward represent repeated sampling rounds through the flowering season.
Variables:
- Year: Year of observation (2019).
- Colour_groups: Floral colour category assigned to the species.
- Species_code: Abbreviated species identifier used consistently across files.
- MF_nMF: Classification of species as mass-flowering (MF) or non-mass-flowering (nMF).
- Aug_II, Sept_I, Sept_II, Sept_III, Oct_I, Oct_II, Oct_III, Nov_I: Sampling rounds in chronological order. The month is followed by a Roman numeral indicating the sampling interval within that month. Values are flowering abundance recorded for the species in that interval.
Sheet 3: Phenology_2020
Description:
Flower abundance observations for each plant species in 2020. Each row corresponds to one species. Columns from May_III onward represent repeated sampling rounds through the flowering season.
Variables:
- Year: Year of observation (2020).
- Colour_groups: Floral colour category assigned to the species.
- Species_code: Abbreviated species identifier used consistently across files.
- MF_nMF: Classification of species as mass-flowering (MF) or non-mass-flowering (nMF).
- May_III, June_I, June_II, June_III, July_I, July_II, July_III, Aug_I, Aug_II, Aug_III, Sept_I, Sept_II, Sept_III, Oct_I, Oct_II, Oct_III, Nov_I, Nov_II: Sampling rounds in chronological order. The month is followed by a Roman numeral indicating the sampling interval within that month. Values are flowering abundance recorded for the species in that interval.
- Species are identified by Species_code rather than full species names.
- MF = mass-flowering species.
- nMF = non-mass-flowering species.
- Time-interval column names encode the observation window; for example, Sept_II refers to the second sampling interval in September.
- Flower abundance values are numeric observations used for phenology analyses and visualization.
Sheet 4: Cumulative_network
Description:
Plant-pollinator interaction strength matrix aggregated across the full study period. Rows are flowering plant species and columns are pollinator functional groups. Each cell contains the mean interaction strength for that plant-pollinator combination over the cumulative season.
Variables:
- Row names (first column, unlabeled): Species_code for flowering plant species.
- Ant: Mean interaction strength with ants.
- Bee: Mean interaction strength with bees.
- Beetle: Mean interaction strength with beetles.
- Butterfly: Mean interaction strength with butterflies.
- Fly: Mean interaction strength with flies.
- Moth: Mean interaction strength with moths.
- Wasp: Mean interaction strength with wasps.
Sheet 5: Pre-peak network
Description:
Long-format plant-pollinator interaction data for the pre-peak flowering season.
Variables:
- First column (unlabeled): Row identifier exported with the table; this is not a biological variable and can be treated as an index.
- Flo_sp: Abbreviated flowering plant species code.
- Pollinator_type: Pollinator functional group.
- Season: Seasonal category for the network record; all values in this sheet are Pre-peak.
- mean: Mean interaction strength for the specified plant species x pollinator functional group combination.
Sheet 6: Peak netwrok
Description:
Long-format plant-pollinator interaction data for the peak flowering season. Note that the sheet name in the workbook is spelled "Peak netwrok".
Variables:
- First column (unlabeled): Row identifier exported with the table; this is not a biological variable and can be treated as an index.
- Flo_sp: Abbreviated flowering plant species code.
- Pollinator_type: Pollinator functional group.
- Season: Seasonal category for the network record; all values in this sheet are Peak.
- mean: Mean interaction strength for the specified plant species x pollinator functional group combination.
Sheet 7: Post-peak network
Description:
Long-format plant-pollinator interaction data for the post-peak flowering season.
Variables:
- First column (unlabeled): Row identifier exported with the table; this is not a biological variable and can be treated as an index.
- Flo_sp: Abbreviated flowering plant species code.
- Pollinator_type: Pollinator functional group.
- Season: Seasonal category for the network record; all values in this sheet are Post-peak.
- mean: Mean interaction strength for the specified plant species x pollinator functional group combination.
FILE 2: Dataset_Network_matrices.xlsx
Description:
This workbook contains only the plant-pollinator network sheets. These sheets duplicate the network-related sheets already present in Dataset_phenology.xlsx.
Sheet 1: Cumulative_network
Description:
Plant-pollinator interaction strength matrix aggregated across the full study period.
Variables:
- Row names (first column, unlabeled): Species_code for flowering plant species.
- Ant, Bee, Beetle, Butterfly, Fly, Moth, Wasp: Mean interaction strength for each pollinator functional group.
Sheet 2: Pre-peak network
Description:
Long-format plant-pollinator interaction data for the pre-peak flowering season.
Variables:
- First column (unlabeled): Row identifier exported with the table; this is not a biological variable and can be treated as an index.
- Flo_sp: Abbreviated flowering plant species code.
- Pollinator_type: Pollinator functional group.
- Season: Seasonal category; all values are Pre-peak.
- mean: Mean interaction strength.
Sheet 3: Peak netwrok
Description:
Long-format plant-pollinator interaction data for the peak flowering season. Note that the sheet name in the workbook is spelled "Peak netwrok".
Variables:
- First column (unlabeled): Row identifier exported with the table; this is not a biological variable and can be treated as an index.
- Flo_sp: Abbreviated flowering plant species code.
- Pollinator_type: Pollinator functional group.
- Season: Seasonal category; all values are Peak.
- mean: Mean interaction strength.
Sheet 4: Post-peak network
Description:
Long-format plant-pollinator interaction data for the post-peak flowering season.
Variables:
- First column (unlabeled): Row identifier exported with the table; this is not a biological variable and can be treated as an index.
- Flo_sp: Abbreviated flowering plant species code.
- Pollinator_type: Pollinator functional group.
- Season: Seasonal category; all values are Post-peak.
- mean: Mean interaction strength.
FILE 3: key_abbreviated_species_IDs.csv
Description:
This csv contains the key for the abbreviated species identifiers used in the study. Same table is also available in the supporting material published along with the manuscript and can be accessed via publisher website.
Definitions and Interpretations
- Species_code / Flo_sp:
Abbreviated code for each flowering plant species. These codes are used consistently across the phenology and network files. A key to these code is attached as a separate CSV file (key_abbreviated_species_IDs.csv).
- Colour_groups:
Floral colour category assigned to each species.
- MF_nMF:
Flowering strategy category used in the manuscript.
MF = mass-flowering species
nMF = non-mass-flowering species
- Pollinator_type:
Pollinator functional group, recorded at the level used for network construction (for example, Bee, Fly, Beetle, Butterfly, Ant, Moth, Wasp). The value "NA" indicates no interaction recorded for that plant-functional group combination in the exported table.
- mean:
Mean interaction strength for a plant species x pollinator functional group combination.
- Seasonal labels:
Pre-peak, Peak, and Post-peak refer to flowering-season phases used in the network analyses.
- Unlabeled first column in long-format network sheets:
This appears to be an exported row identifier or index and is not required for biological interpretation.
- Time-interval columns in phenology sheets:
Column names combine month and within-month sampling interval. Roman numerals indicate the order of the observation interval within that month.
Methods and notes to reuse the data
- Phenology sheets are in wide format, with species in rows and observation intervals in columns.
- Network data are provided in two formats:
1. matrix format (Cumulative_network), and
2. long format (Pre-peak network, Peak netwrok, and Post-peak network).
- Dataset_Network_matrices.xlsx duplicates the network component already included in Dataset_phenology.xlsx.
- Users reusing the data should treat species codes consistently across both workbooks.
- If the repository also includes R scripts, those scripts correspond to analyses described in the manuscript sections on climate, flowering phenology, flowering synchrony, and plant-pollinator network analyses.
Sharing/Access information
Climate data was derived from the following sources:
Open source data viewer: https://power.larc.nasa.gov/data-access-viewer/ using single point sampling at co-ordinates 17.720650067546952, 73.82487069148452 (Kaas plateau).
Code/Software
We used R (4.2.2) for the analysis. We have included entire workflow. in the attached R codes files. Please use the following description to access the required R codes.
(File_1.txt): Section 2.2: GAMLSS analysis, climatic parameters.
(File_2.txt): Section 2.3: Flowering phenology: Classification of species into mass-flowering and non-mass-flowering species based on their flowering density.
(File_3.txt): Section 2.3: Flowering Phenology: Visualisation of the three-year-long flowering phenology observations.
(File_4.txt): Section 2.4: Flowering synchrony: Calculation of SItemp and SIabd as discussed in the manuscript.
(File_5.txt): Section 2.4: Flowering synchrony: Visualisation and various comparisons among species.
(File_6.txt): Section 2.5: Plant-pollinator network plotting, visualisation, and indices calculations.