Does motility-restricting fibrosis influence dispersal? An experiment in nature with threespine stickleback
Data files
Aug 25, 2025 version files 11.04 KB
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heckley_alumDryadData.csv
8.51 KB
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README.md
2.53 KB
Abstract
Dispersal can affect individual-level fitness and population-level ecological and evolutionary processes. Factors that affect dispersal could therefore have important eco-evolutionary implications. Here, we investigated the extent to which an inflammation and tissue repair response – peritoneal fibrosis – which is known to restrict movement, could influence dispersal by conducting a mark-recapture experiment in a lake in Alaska with threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculatus). A subset of captured stickleback were injected with aluminum phosphate to experimentally induce fibrosis ('treatment group'), and another subset were injected with saline or received no injection– both of which do not induce fibrosis ('control group'). We released all fish at one introduction point and re-sampled stickleback throughout the lake for eight days. We recaptured 123 individuals (n = 47 fibrosis treatment; n = 76 control) and dissected them to determine fibrosis levels. Overall, fibrosis did not affect dispersal. Some compelling, but not statistically significant, trends suggest that early-stage inflammation may affect dispersal, providing opportunities for future work. By showing that effects to dispersal are not important side-effects of fibrosis, these findings improve our understanding of the ecological implications of immune responses.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qfttdz0rx
Description of the data and file structure
Factors that affect dispersal can have important eco-evolutionary implications. Here, we show that an inflammation and tissue repair response – peritoneal fibrosis – does not influence threespine stickleback dispersal. To do so, we conducted a mark-recapture experiment in a lake in Alaska. A subset of stickleback were injected with aluminum phosphate, which induces fibrosis. Another subset were either injected with phosphate buffered saline, or received no injection (handling control group), both of which do not induce fibrosis. We released fish from all treatment groups (alum, saline, handling) into the lake and resampled throughout the lake, at various distances from that introduction point. Re-captured stickleback were dissected to determine the extent of their fibrosis.
Files and variables
File: heckley_alumDryadData.csv
Description:
Variables
- id: Unique identifier assigned to an individual stickleback upon recapture.
- trap: Unique identifier assigned to a given trap set at a given location.
- treatment: The treatment received by a given individual (alum = experimentally induced fibrosis; saline and dorsal = control). Dorsal = handling only control (this is called 'dorsal' because these fish were identified with a dorsal spine clip)
- day: The day of the experiment, where 1 = first day of recapturing, and 8 = the final day of recapturing.
- fibrosis: Fibrosis score assigned to a given stickleback, from 0 (no fibrosis) to 4 (most severe extent of fibrosis).
- sex: Male (M) or female (F).
- mass: The mass (g) of a given individual.
- standardLength: The standard length (mm) of a given individual.
- captureSide: The side of the lake that a given stickleback was recaptured on.
- schisto: A binary variable indicating whether a given individual is infected with Schistocephalus solidus.
- gpsLon: The longitude of the trap at which a given stickleback was captured.
- gpsLat: The latitude of the trap at which a given stickleback was captured.
- distFromRelease_gps: The distance between the trap at which a stickleback was captured and the point where stickleback were initially introduced.
Code/software
The associated code is an R markdown file. The analyses were conducted with R version 4.3.1.