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Data and code from: Individual characteristics, experience and environmental conditions shape large-scale patterns of animal activity timing

Brehm, Allison1; Assis, Vania2; Martin, Lynn2; Orrock, John1

Published May 05, 2026 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.08kprr5hz

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Abstract

The timing of an animal’s activity is an essential determinant of its survival and reproduction because timing determines the nature of every interaction an organism has with its abiotic and biotic environment. Although the timing of activity may depend on aspects of the individual (e.g., body mass, reproductive status, experience) or the nature of the environment (e.g., temperature, precipitation, abundance of congeners), we lack studies that evaluate the timing of large numbers of conspecifics spanning an array of environmental conditions. We quantified the timing of activity onset (measured as the time when an individual was captured) for 1749 capture events of 716 individual white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) sampled in 2022 and 2023 at 8 sites in the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) across the upper midwestern and eastern U.S. Using a mixed-modeling approach, we found strong effects of body mass, sex, and prior capture experience on timing of activity. Larger individuals, reproductive females, and individuals with previous capture experience were all captured earlier in the night. Extrinsic factors also influenced activity onset, as animals were captured earlier when temperatures were warmer, later on nights with precipitation, and earlier as the density of congeners increased. Individual traits interacted with extrinsic factors to influence the timing of activity onset, as the shift to earlier capture with increasing capture experience was greatest for smaller individuals, and only reproductive females were active earlier (not males or non-reproductive females). Overall, our results indicated a strong role for individual and environmental factors on the timing of activity onset, including the role of potential competitors. Our results provide broad evidence of learning by wild rodents across a large extent of the species’ geographic range, suggesting that use of experience to modify behavior is a common feature of animals in natural environments. Moreover, our results indicate that traits that vary among individuals (e.g., sex, age) and within individuals (experience) are essential for predicting changes in individual behavior as well as potential changes in interactions mediated by individual activity (e.g., competition, predation, and disease dynamics).