Data from: Heritability of body size matches trait evolution in the range expansion of a biological control agent
Data files
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README.md
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weight_width_submit.csv
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Abstract
The heritability of a trait determines whether selection will lead to a change in that trait. Heritability can be measured through breeding designs where the parents are known and the trait is measured on offspring of known relatedness, such as full siblings and half siblings. During range expansion, individuals at the edge are predicted to evolve higher fecundity and greater dispersal ability than core individuals. In insects, both of these are correlated with larger body size. These data were collected to investigate the genetic variation available for evolution of body size of a beetle introduced to North America for biological control (Diorhabda carinulata). The data consist of measurements of body mass and thorax width of full sibling and half sibling families of D. carinulata from one population at the origin of the range expansion.
Description of columns in weight_width_submit.csv
beetle_ID: A unique identifier for each offspring beetle on which a trait was measured. The ID consists of three parts. The first part is a number that identifies the sire (male parent). Second, a letter that identifies the dam (female parent). Note that this letter is nested within sire (e.g., dam A mated to sire 1 is different than dam A mated to sire 2). Third, a letter S, L, or M, which indicates male (M), or female (S or L). The S and L indicate treatments which took place after collection on these data and do not indicate any experimentally planned differences between the females at this stage of the experiment.
sire: Indicates the identity of sire. This ranges from 1 to 39. This information can also be extracted from beetle_ID.
dam: Indicates the identity of dam, nested within sire. Some sires mated with 8 females and for those sires, values range from A to H. Other sires mated with 7 females, and for those sires, values range from A to G. As noted above, there is no relationship between dams with the same letter. Some sires will be missing one or more letters for dams, because some pairings did not produce offspring. This information can also be extracted from beetle_ID.
sex: Indicates whether a beetle is male or female. Males are indicated with "M" and females with "F".
weight: Mass of the beetle, in milligrams. Weight was taken on the day of eclosion. These are the data that are used in Figure 1. They are also used in the top half of Table 1.
eclosion_date: Date that the beetle emerged as an adult and also the date on which the beetle was weighed.
th_width: Width of thorax, in millimeters. Measured with calipers. These are the data used in Figure 2. They are also used in the bottom half of Table 1. Due to experimental constraints, the thorax width of a few individuals was not able to be measured.
The data consists of measurements of two traits related to body size: weight at eclosion and thorax width of individual beetles of known parentage in full sibling families, nested into half-sibling families. Weight at eclosion was measured on the day that the beetle emerged as an adult. Thorax width is unlikely to change after eclosion, so it was measured on adults in the weeks after eclosion. Due to experimental constraints, we could not measure thorax width on all individuals, so some individuals are missing this data. Traits were measured on three offspring per full-sibling family, two females and one male. At the time of the measurements, the rearing environment of all full-siblings was identical. At eclosion, beetles were separated and reared separately in individual cups with plenty of food.
Rearing conditions of all beetles were standardized in growth chambers set to long daylengths that would promote reproduction. Beetles were fed ad libitum with fresh tamarisk, the natural food source.
Research was performed in summer of 2019 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA in the Agricultural Biology Department.