Data from: Different aspects of dominance are not equivalent when testing for trade-offs in ant communities
Data files
Oct 09, 2025 version files 266.91 KB
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AntBodySize.csv
44.48 KB
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AntMasses.csv
1.26 KB
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BaitData.csv
170.56 KB
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ColonyBehavDomData.csv
6.77 KB
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DomDiscMeans.csv
1.22 KB
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IndivBehavDomData.csv
3.83 KB
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IndividualOutcomes.csv
337 B
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MetaAnalysisData.csv
20.38 KB
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PitfallTrapData.csv
6.12 KB
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README.md
11.95 KB
Abstract
Differences in dominance are frequently invoked to explain the outcomes of competition. Yet, what it means to be dominant, and which traits underlie dominance, are poorly understood. Here, we sought to determine the relationships between multiple aspects of dominance, the potential for trade-offs with discovery ability, and the traits associated with these patterns within a high elevation community of five ant taxa. We examined several common dominance metrics – behavioral dominance (winning aggressive encounters at both the individual and colony levels), numerical dominance (abundance and activity in baits and pitfall traps), and ecological dominance (high relative frequency in baits) – and found that individual- and colony-level behavioral dominance were positively correlated, as were ecological and numerical dominance. However, colony-level behavioral and numerical dominance were negatively correlated, and no other dominance metrics were associated. There was a dominance-discovery trade-off, as increased behavioral (but not numerical or ecological) dominance was associated with slower resource discovery. This trade-off was likely driven by behaviorally dominant ants having larger body sizes and recruiting a greater biomass of workers to baits. In contrast, fast discoverers were more abundant in the environment (i.e., numerically dominant). Complementing our empirical study, a meta-analysis of 54 responses from 21 studies showed that the association between dominance and discovery ability depended on dominance metric. Whereas discovery ability was positively correlated with numerical dominance, its relationships with behavioral and ecological dominance were highly variable and not significantly different from zero. Overall, our empirical findings, in combination with the synthesis of past studies, demonstrate that different aspects of ant dominance are not equivalent. Yet, regardless of dominance type, there is little evidence that dominance-discovery trade-offs occur in most ant communities.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1ggn
Description of the data and file structure
Files and variables
File 1: AntBodySize.csv
Description: The body sizes of each ant taxon.
Variables
- date: The date(s) when the bait was deployed.
- tot.hrs: The total number of hours for which the pitfall trap was deployed.
- site: The field site in which the bait was deployed.
- pitfall.trap.id: The plot within each field site where the pitfall trap was deployed.
- taxon: The ant taxon measured.
- body.length.mm: Ant body length (in millimeters).
- head.width.mm: Ant head width (in millimeters).
File 2: AntMasses.csv
Description: The masses of ants collected from the field.
Variables
- taxon: The ant taxon measured.
- mass.mg: Ant body mass (in milligrams).
File 3: BaitData.csv
Description: The recruitment of ants to 20% honey baits over time.
Variables
- date: The date(s) when the bait was deployed.
- site: The field site in which the bait was deployed.
- plot: The plot within each field site where the bait as deployed.
- start.time: The time of day when the bait was first deployed.
- minutes.elapsed: The number of minutes the bait had been deployed at the time when ants were counted.
- F.podzolica: The number of F. podzolica ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- T.sessile: The number of T. sessile ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- Camponotus: The number of Camponotus spp. ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- Myrmica: The number of Myrmica spp. ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- Leptothorax: The number of Leptothorax sp. ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- F.rufa: The number of F. rufa ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- species: A variable used to indicate which species were present in that bait at that particular time. This is simply another way of presenting information included in the previous columns to facilitate analysis.
- species.next: A variable used to indicate which species were present in the bait during the subsequent observation. This is simply another way of presenting information included in the next row to facilitate analysis. If there was no next observation (i.e., because it was the last observation of that bait), the cell is left empty.
File 4: ColonyBehavDomData.csv
Description: The data file used to calculate estimated marginal mean colony-level behavioral dominance scores. This is simply a subset of the "BaitData.csv" file, which was filtered to only include observations in which species transitions occurred in baits.
Variables
- interaction.id: The ID number of the interaction within the bait. Note that the two species involved in the interaction are shown individually in separate rows. Rows with the same interaction ID thus list species involved in the same interaction.
- site: The field site in which the bait was deployed.
- plot: The plot within each field site where the bait as deployed.
- minutes.elapsed: The number of minutes the bait had been deployed at the time when ants were counted.
- winner: If the focal species won the interaction, it is indicated by a score of "1." If it lost the interaction, it is indicated by a score of "0." If there was a tie, this is indicated by "0.5."
- species: The focal species involved in the interaction. The two species that were pitted against each other are shown individually in separate rows.
- competitor: The competitor with which the focal species interacted.
File 5: DomDiscMeans.csv
Description: Estimated marginal mean dominance and discovery scores with standard errors, where applicable. These mean values were calculated (in the R scripts) based on raw data included in the previous datasets.
Variables
- taxon: The ant taxon measured.
- indiv.beh.dom: Individual-level behavioral dominance, calculated as raw proportions from one-on-one assay data.
- indiv.colley: Individual-level behavioral dominance, calculated as Colley scores from one-on-one assay data.
- bait.beh.dom: Colony-level behavioral dominance, calculated as raw proportions from bait data.
- bait.emm: Estimated marginal mean colony-level behavioral dominance.
- upper.bait.emm.se: Estimated marginal mean colony-level behavioral dominance upper standard errors.
- lower.bait.emm.se: Estimated marginal mean colony-level behavioral dominance lower standard errors.
- num.dom.pitfalls: Estimated marginal mean numerical dominance scores from pitfall traps.
- upper.num.pitfall.se: Estimated marginal mean numerical dominance upper standard errors from pitfall traps.
- lower.num.pitfall.se: Estimated marginal mean numerical dominance lower standard errors from pitfall traps.
- num.dom.bait: Estimated marginal mean numerical dominance scores from baits.
- upper.num.bait.se: Estimated marginal mean numerical dominance upper standard errors from baits.
- lower.num.bait.se: Estimated marginal mean numerical dominance lower standard errors from baits.
- ecol.dom: Estimated marginal mean ecological dominance scores.
- upper.ecol.se: Estimated marginal mean ecological dominance upper standard errors.
- lower.ecol.se: Estimated marginal mean ecological dominance lower standard errors.
- disc.time: Estimated marginal mean discovery time.
- upper.disc.se: Estimated marginal mean discovery time upper standard error.
- lower.disc.se: Estimated marginal mean discovery time lower standard error.
File 6: IndivBehavDomData.csv
Description: The outcomes of staged one-on-one assays used to assess individual-level behavioral dominance of ants.
Variables
- date: The date when each assay was conducted.
- pair: The species pair that was tested in the assay, with the following abbreviations used for each species: "Camp" for Camponotus spp., "Rufa" for F. rufa species group, "Podz" for F. podzolica, "Myr" for Myrmica spp., and "Tap" for Tapinoma sessile.
- aggression: Whether or not aggression was observed during the assay, with "Y" indicating aggression occurred and "N" indicating it did not.
- aggressor: The identity of the species that exhibited aggression, if it occurred (using the same abbreviations as above). If aggression did not occur, the aggressor is listed as "NA." If both ants exhibited aggression, they are both listed.
- winner: The species that won the assay (using the same abbreviations as above). If there was no clear winner, this is indicated as a "Tie."
- loser: The species that lost the assay (using the same abbreviations as above). If there was no clear loser, this is indicated as a "Tie."
- highest.score: The highest scoring (on a four-point scale) interaction observed.
- num.high.scores: The number of times the highest score was observed.
- total.interactions: The total number of interactions of each score observed during the assay.
File 7: IndividualOutcomes.csv
Description: The outcomes of staged one-on-one assays, summarized as the number of assays won/lost for each species pair (based on the original data shown in "IndivBehavDomData.csv" file). Note that this is simply another way of presenting the data, using the formatting required by the R package used to calculate Colley scores.
Variables
- game: This variable is used to indicate which species were paired in the "game," or assay. Players with the same number for "game" are the ones being compared.
- player: The species, or "player," in the assays.
- score: The number of "games" that "player" won against the other.
File 8: MetaAnalysisData.csv
Description: Data included in the meta-analysis.
Variables
- authors: The authors of the study from which data were obtained.
- year: The year of publication of the study from which data were obtained.
- title: The title of the study from which data were obtained.
- journal: The publication from which data were obtained.
- citation: The ID number assigned to the study from which data were obtained.
- experiment: The ID number assigned to the experiment from which data were obtained (in some cases, studies included multiple experiments).
- source: The location (e.g., figure or table) in the paper from which data were obtained.
- dominance.group: The dominance metric measured (behavioral, numerical, or ecological).
- dominance.data: The specific way in which the dominance metric was measured.
- discovery.data: The specific way in which discovery ability was measured.
- climate.zone: The climate zone in which the study was conducted.
- habitat: The habitat in which the study was conducted.
- latitude: The latitude from which data were collected.
- longitude: The longitude from which data were collected.
- altitude: The elevation from which data were collected, in meters above sea level.
- no.spp: The number of ant species included in the study.
- no.sites: The number of field sites from which data were collected.
- site.id: The ID of the site from which data were collected, if analyzed separately from other sites in the study.
- no.plots: The number of plots from which data were collected (in cases where multiple plots within site were used).
- no.stations: The number of stations within plot.
- spearman.coef: Spearman's correlation coefficient between dominance and discovery ability.
- p.value: The p-value indicating whether the correlation is significantly different from zero.
- notes: Additional relevant information about the study from which data were collected.
File 9: PitfallTrapData.csv
Description: The number and composition of ants collected in pitfall traps.
Variables
- date: The date(s) when the pitfall trap was deployed.
- total.hrs: The total number of hours for which the pitfall trap was deployed.
- site: The field site in which the bait was deployed.
- plot: The plot within each field site where the bait as deployed.
- F.podzolica: The number of F. podzolica ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- T.sessile: The number of T. sessile ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- Camponotus: The number of Camponotus spp. ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- Myrmica: The number of Myrmica spp. ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
- F.rufa: The number of F. rufa ants observed at the bait at that particular time.
Code/software
## {ScriptFile.R}
## Script description.
## Figures where results are reported in the paper: {List of figures}
## Uses data files: {List of data files that are used by this script,
## referenced by the number listed in the "Data files" section of this README}
(1) DominanceCorrelations.R
This is the R script for analyses of ant dominance metrics and how they relate to each other.
Figures where results are reported in the paper: Fig. 2 & Appendix S1: Figs. S2 & S3.
Uses data files: 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9 described above.
(2) DominanceDiscoveryTradeoffs.R
This is the R script for analyses of associations between ant dominance and discovery ability.
Figures where results are reported in the paper: Fig. 3 & Appendix S1: Fig. S4.
Uses data files: 3 & 5 described above.
(3) AntTraitCorrelations.R
This is the R script for analyses of associations between the dominance-discovery trade-off and a number of ant traits.
Figures where results are reported in the paper: Fig. 4 & Appendix S1: Figs. S5 & S6.
Uses data files: 1-3, 5, and 9 described above.
(4) MetaAnalysis.R
This is the R script associated with the meta-analysis.
Figure where results are reported in the paper: 5.
Uses data file: 8 described above.
Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data:
- Not applicable
Data was derived from the following sources:
- Not applicable