Ecological Implications of Primary and Secondary Dispersal of Fungi by Vertebrates - Dataset

Full description

This data was collected for the thesis and all of the data has appeared in the chapters and/or in published papers. The data includes dietary data collected from scat analysis, R script, literature review, and fieldwork.

Data collected from scat analysis was done through trapping of animals, analysis of stomach contents from museums or analysis of scats collected after being deposited. Animals were captured using standard live trapping protocols. Samples were then preserved in alcohol and analysed under 400 x magnification. Dietary components were identified using microscopic characters. Animals examined in this portion of the study were sourced from Australia, New Guinea, Indonisia, Turkey, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon. For full details of these methods see: chapters 3, 4, 5 & 8.

This data includes notes from fieldwork. Literature review data was collected by systematically reviewing literature written in more than 5 languages. This includes searching relevant journals and databases. Several different libraries were used to source the references and these were compiled into three global review papers on the global importance of associations between vertebrates and fungi. For full details relevant to each review they can be accesed in published form or they can be found in chapters 2, 6 & 7.

The R script is relevant to Chapter 5 and it provides the script that estimates the spore dispersal potential of dingoes based on scat analysis data collected in New England National Park and in Cathedral Rock National park.