The temperature of the nest influences fitness in cavity-nesting bees. Females may choose 14 nest cavities that mitigate their offspring’s exposure to stressful temperatures. This study aims to 15 understand how cavity temperature impacts the nesting preference of the solitary bee Megachile 16 rotundata under field conditions. We designed and 3D printed nest boxes that measured the 17 temperatures of 432 cavities. Nest boxes were four-sided with cavity entrances facing northeast, 18 northwest, southeast, and southwest. Nest boxes were placed along an alfalfa field in Fargo, ND 19 and were observed daily for completed nests. Our study found that cavity temperature varied by 20 direction the cavity faced and by the position of the cavity within the nest box. The southwest 21 sides recorded the highest maximum temperatures while the northeast sides recorded the lowest 22 maximum temperatures. Nesting females filled cavities on the north-facing sides faster than 23 cavities on the south-facing sides. The bees preferred to nest in cavities with lower average 24 temperatures during foraging hours, and cavities that faced to the north. The direction the cavity 25 faced was associated with the number of offspring per nest. The southwest-facing cavities had 26 fewer offspring than nests on the northeast side. Our study indicates that the nesting box acts as a 27 microclimate, with temperature varying by position and direction of the cavity. Variation in 28 cavity temperature affected where females chose to nest, but not their reproductive investment.

This data was collect from a field site in Fargo North Dakota using 108 3-D printed nesting boxes. These boxes were stacked in a 3x3 pattern facing the four ordinal directions, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and Southeast. Three replicates were used and were made up of 36 individual blocks. Each block contained an individual iButton that measured the four cavities within each nesting box. The iButton collected the temperature of the box/four cavities to the nearest 0.5C every 15 minutes from June 21st to Sept. 22nd 2018. Nest boxes were check every day for completed nests and the date and position of the cavity was recorded until all 108 blocks were filled. 

The data has been processed using RStudio (2019, version 1.1.419) and R (R Core Team 149 2019, version 3.5.2).

“Microclimate impacts nesting preference of Megachile rotundata” (Wilson et al. 2020)

Column Names and Definitions

NP_Binomial.csv

Direction- This is the ordinal direction the nest box was facing

Replicate- The replicate id.

Block- The block number that depicts the specific coordinates of the block within each side of 9.

Nest ID-The full Id for each individual nest. This includes the direction, replicate, block and nest position.

Capped Date- The date the nest was finished as indicated by the leaf cap.  

Nest Size- The number of brood cells within a nest.

Start Date- The day the nest was started calculated by taking the Capped subtracted by the nest size.

All Date- Each individual day the experiment ran.

Temp_AllDate- The average temperature of that an individual block, by each All Date.

Status- Whether a cavity was chosen (filled), unchosen (unfilled), or already filled (taken) based on the All Date.

Output- A binomial cavity of Status filled=1, unfilled=0. The taken observations were not included with a binomial variable because they were going to be removed from analysis.

Nest Pref_Julia.csv (This is a dataset generated based off of NP_Binomial.csv. The differences include inclusion of a row, column, and Nest Position column. However, this dataset has removed all of the “Taken” observations in Status in order to complete the linear models. Taken observations include nesting cavities that were not available for choice based on the All_Date and thus should not be used in the Choice analysis. Nest Pref_Julia.csv also only includes All_Date once approx. 50% of cavities were filled, because how much choice is available when half of the options are taken.)

Direction- This is the ordinal direction the nest box was facing

Replicate- The replicate id.

Block- The block number that depicts the specific coordinates of the block within each side of 9.

Row- The id of the row within the side of the nesting box. The top row is labeled as 1 the middle 2, and the last row is 3.

Column- The id of the column within the side of the nesting box. The column farthest to the left is 1, the middle column 2, and the farthest column to the right is 3.

NestID-The full Id for each individual nest. This includes the direction, replicate, block and nest position.

NestP- The id of the position within a nesting block. Each block contains four cavities. The upper left cavity is 1, the top right 2, bottom left 3, and bottom right 4.

Capped Date- The date the nest was finished. This was calculated by taking the Start Date subtracted by the nest size.

Nest Size- The number of brood cells within a singular nest.

Start Date- The day the nest was started as indicated by presence of nesting.

All Date- Each individual day the experiment ran.

Temp_AllDate- The average temperature of that an individual block by each All Date.

Status- Whether a cavity was chosen (filled) or unchosen (unfilled) based on the All Date.

Output- A binomial cavity of Status filled=1, unfilled=0.

Elisaabeth_data_Aug21st.csv

Column A- A hold over from the individual ibutton download. It has no bearing on the data or manipulation.

Dates- The date the temperatures were collected on.

Month- The numerical indicator for the month the temperature was collected on.

Day- The numerical indicator for the day the temperature was collected on.

Time- The time interval the temperature was collected on.

Hour- The hour the data was collected.

Minutes- The minute the data was collected.

Direction- This is the ordinal direction the nest box was facing.

Replication- The replicate id.

Block- The block number that depicts the specific coordinates of the block within each side of 9.

recordDate- The full recorded date of the temperature.

Temperture- The temperature of each individual block on each recordDate, and each time period. Temperture is misspelled in the dataset.

Max Temp by Direction- The maximum temperature reached by each direction, and replicate.