Data from: Contemporary ecological interactions improve models of past trait evolution

Despite the fact that natural selection underlies both traits and interactions, evolutionary models often neglect that ecological interactions may, and in many cases do, influence the evolution of traits. Here, we explore the interdependence of ecological interactions and functional traits in the pollination associations of hawkmoths and flowering plants. Specifically, we develop an adaptation of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model of trait evolution that allows us to study the influence of plant corolla depth and observed hawkmoth-plant interactions on the evolution of hawkmoth proboscis length. Across diverse modelling scenarios, we find that the inclusion of contemporary interactions can provide a better description of trait evolution than the null expectation. Moreover, we show that the pollination interactions provide more-likely models of hawkmoth trait evolution when interactions are considered at increasingly fine-scale groups of hawkmoths. Finally, we demonstrate how the results of best-fit modelling approaches can implicitly support the association between interactions and trait evolution that our method explicitly examines. In showing that contemporary interactions can provide insight into the historical evolution of hawkmoth proboscis length, we demonstrate the clear utility of incorporating additional ecological information to models designed to study past trait evolution.Hawkmoth proboscis length optimaThe optima calculated based on selective regimes, pollination interactions, and plant corolla lengths. Original trait and interaction data can be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qn83roptimas.RDataHawkmoth phylogenyThe dated phylogeny used for this study. Tree was compiled from the species presence data of: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qn83r. Nodes were dated with the phylogeny of: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3450rhawkmoth.nexSupplementary MaterialAdditional analyses including model-fits where EIT is not weighted by interaction frequency, output of SURFACE, and comparisons to the SLOUCH model.supporting_information.pdfProboscis lengths for hawkmoth speciesA two-column data frame containing species names and the proboscis length corresponding to each species. These data are drawn from https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qn83r and the original publication should be cited when referring to this data. In cases where a species occurred in more than one network in the aforementioned paper, the mean proboscis length is given in this file.hm_traits.csvModel implementation exampleTwo R scripts. One containing the functions that implement the model and one containing a short script to run the model.model_code.tar.g