Competing phylogenetic models have been proposed to explain the success of species introduced to other communities. Here, we present a study predicting the establishment success of birds introduced to Florida, Hawaii, and New Zealand using several alternative models, considering species’ phylogenetic relatedness to source and recipient range taxa, propagule pressure, and traits. We find consistent support for the predictive ability of source region phylogenetic structure. However, we find that the effects of recipient region phylogenetic structure vary in sign and magnitude depending on inclusion of source region phylogenetic structure, delineation of the recipient species pool, and the use of phylogenetic correction in the models. We argue that tests of alternative phylogenetic hypotheses including the both source and recipient community phylogenetic structure, as well as important covariates such as propagule pressure, are likely to be critical for identifying general phylogenetic patterns in introduction success, predicting future invasions, and for stimulating further exploration of the underlying mechanisms of invasibility.

This dataset describes the success or failure of bird introductions in New Zealand, Florida, and Hawaii, along with associated phylogenetic data from both source (i.e. native) and recipient regions (i.e. the regions they were introduced to).

The data used in this manuscript are derived from previously published sources, including range maps from Birdlife International (https://www.birdlife.org/), phylogenies from Birdtree.org (https://birdtree.org/), political division boundaries from the GADM dataset (https://gadm.org/), and introduction success/failure data as compiled by Maitner et al. 2012 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2011.07176.x). Data processing is documented in the Maitner et al. 2021, and the code for data processing is available at https://github.com/bmaitner/bird_invasion_phylogenetics.

Column names:

Columns with the prefix "s_" or "r_" refer to metrics calculated relative to the source or recipient community, respectively. Columns containing "_n_", "_e_", or "_ne_" refer to metrics calculated relative to native species, established species, or both native and established species, respectively. The abbreviations "pd", "nnd", "mpd", "vpd","spd", and "kpd" refer to Faith's Phylogenetic Diversity, Phylogenetic Nearest Neighbor Distance, Mean Phylogenetic Distance, Variance of Phylogenetic Distance, Skewness of Phylogenetic Distance, and Kurtosis of Phylogenetic Distance, respectively.

Transformations:

All continuous variables (phylogenetic metrics, richness metrics, and area metrics) have been scaled and centered.

Columns included are:

"species_i" : The focal species

"site_i" : The focal site, one of either H, F, or N to denote Hawaii, Florida, or New Zealand.

"s_range_size" : The source range size, measured in 100 km x 100 km raster cells occupied.

"s_pd" : The source range Faith's PD

"s_nnd" : The source range phylogenetic nearest neighbor distance

"s_mpd" : The source range mean phylogenetic distance

"s_vpd" : The source range variance of phylogenetic distance

"s_spd" : The source range skewness of phylogenetic distance

"s_kpd" : The source range kurtosis of phylogenetic distance

"s_richness" : The source range species richness.

"r_success" : Introduction success in the recipient range (1 for established, 0 for failed).

"r_range_size" : The source range size, measured in 100 km x 100 km raster cells occupied.

"r_n_pd" : The recipient range Faith's PD, calculated relative to native species only.

"r_n_nnd" : The recipient range phylogenetic nearest neighbor distance, relative to native species only.

"r_n_mpd" : The recipient range mean phylogenetic distance, relative to native species only.

"r_n_vpd" : The recipient range variance of phylogenetic distances, relative to native species only.

"r_n_spd" : The recipient range skewness of phylogenetic distances, relative to native species only.

"r_n_kpd" : The recipient range kurtosis of phylogenetic distances, relative to native species only.

"r_n_richness" : The recipient range species richness of native species.

"r_e_pd" : The recipient range Faith's PD, calculated relative to established species only.

"r_e_nnd" : The recipient range phylogenetic nearest neighbor distance, relative to established species only.

"r_e_mpd" : The recipient range mean phylogenetic distance, relative to established species only.

"r_e_vpd" : The recipient range variance of phylogenetic distance, relative to established species only.

"r_e_spd" : The recipient range skewness of phylogenetic distance, relative to established species only.

"r_e_kpd" : The recipient range kurtosis of phylogenetic distance, relative to established species only.

"r_e_richness" : The recipient range species richness of established species.

"r_ne_pd" : The recipient range Faith's PD, calculated relative to both native and established species.

"r_ne_nnd" : The recipient range phylogenetic nearest neighbor distance, relative to native and established species.

"r_ne_mpd" : The recipient range mean phylogenetic distance, relative to native and established species.

"r_ne_vpd" : The recipient range variance phylogenetic distance, relative to native and established species.

"r_ne_spd" : The recipient range skewness phylogenetic distance, relative to native and established species.

"r_ne_kpd" : The recipient range kurtosis phylogenetic distance, relative to native and established species.

"r_ne_richness" : The recipient range species richness of native and established species.