This data package accompanies the paper: Muthukrishnan, R. 2021. The relationship between native species richness and exotic species richness or occurrence will always be negative when the total number of species is accounted for in statistical models: A response to Beaury et al. Ecology Letters Included is a single R script that runs a simulation to randomly create communities with a random number of native and exotic species, such that their richness is uncorrelated. These data are then used to test if false relationships between native species richness and exotic species richness (or occurrence) are produced by statistical models that include a covariate for total species richness. Running the entire script will create the data, run statistical analyses, and produce the a pdf version of figures included in the published manuscript. Additionally a number of plots and analyses that are helpful to understand the nature of the simulation will be produced, but not saved. Archive files: Beaury_response_simulation_code.R This script will run the simulation, conduct analyses, and produce figures.