Chakravarty, Rohit et al. (2023), Increasing species richness along elevational gradients is associated with niche packing in bat assemblages, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.44j0zpcjc --------------------------------------------------------------------- Methods All data were self generated. Briefly, these data come from 23 species of bats that were sampled in the Indian Himalayas at elevations ranging from 1500 to 3000 m. We collected small wing tissue samples from these bats (before releasing them), which were analysed for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios at the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Germany. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes are commonly used to study trophic interactions among species. To characterise the baseline isotope values across the elevational gradient we did the same analysis using plant and insect samples. These data were then analysed to study niche partitioning in the bat assemblages. For details on the methods refer to the manuscript published in Journal of Animal Ecology. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Data files and their description: 1. Chakravarty_etal2023_JAE_IsoBats.csv Raw carbon & nitrogen isotope values of all bats (and their functional groups) sampled in this study along with their elevations (as depicted in the paper). This can be modified for use in the SIBER R package to calculate metrics related to niche width, and in nicheRover R package to calculate niche overlap (see Usage Notes). 2. Chakravarty_etal2023_JAE_IsoInsects.csv Raw carbon and nitrogen isotope values of insects with their elevations and the orders to which they belong. 3. Chakravarty_etal2023_JAE_IsoPlants.csv Raw carbon and nitrogen isotope values of plants (oaks and rhododendrons) with their elevations. 4. Chakravarty_etal2023_JAE_LaymanMetrics.csv Layman metrics generated from the SIBER R package (using 50 iterations as described in the paper) using the bat isotope values. The two Layman metrics reported in the paper are: Distance to Centroid (CD): Average Euclidean distance of each species to the carbon and nitrogen isotope centroid. (Centroid = mean d13C and d15N value for all species in the assemblage) Nearest Neighbour Distance (NND): Mean of Euclidean distance to each species' nearest neighbour in a biplot space. [For details on these metrics refer to this paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/0012-9658%282007%2988%5B42%3ACSIRPF%5D2.0.CO%3B2] Note that these values are randomized. You may obtain different values (but with similar patterns) when you generate these yourselves using the codes provided below. 5. Chakravarty_etal2023_JAE_SEA.B_Guilds.csv Bayesian Standardised Ellipse Areas (SEAb) calculated using 50 iterations from the SIBER R package for each functional group in our study. Note that these values are randomized. You may obtain different values (but with similar patterns) when you generate these yourselves using the codes provided below. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage Notes 1. Analyses performed using SIBER R package All analyses were performed by modifying these codes provided by the author of the package https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/SIBER/vignettes/Introduction-to-SIBER.html 2. Analyses performed using nicheRover R package All analyses were performed by modifying these codes provided by the authors of the package https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/nicheROVER/vignettes/ecol-vignette.html As described in the paper, we removed species with <3 samples from communities while calculating SEAb and niche overlap. While calculating SEAb we removed fruit-eating bats and active gleaning bats (which had uniformly <3 samples at all elevations). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sharing/Access information You must cite these data (as mentioned in the title) should you use them in your study.