Data from: Ornamentation is associated with social costs in male red-backed fairywrens (Malurus melanocephalus)
Data files
Nov 07, 2025 version files 3.01 MB
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1yo_edgelist_pub.csv
1.52 MB
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1yo_edgelist_t_vs_natural_pub.csv
522.81 KB
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1yo_gps_18_pub.csv
101.97 KB
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1yo_gps_19_pub.csv
236.51 KB
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1yo_homerange_males_pub.csv
1.77 KB
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Ages_and_Sexes_2018_pub.csv
10.96 KB
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Ages_and_Sexes_2019_pub.csv
8.84 KB
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akde18_list_pub.csv
1.09 KB
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akde19_list_pub.csv
1.37 KB
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associations18_pub.csv
209.54 KB
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associations19_pub.csv
374.99 KB
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Birdlist_implant_males_pub.csv
2.14 KB
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birdlist18_pub.csv
451 B
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birdlist19_pub.csv
501 B
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README.md
13.59 KB
Abstract
Sexually-selected ornaments typically confer reproductive benefits, but ornamented and unornamented male phenotypes often co-occur in the same population. Reduced social costs are one potential compensatory benefit of unornamented male phenotypes, but few studies have tested this hypothesis in a natural context. Here we present a field-based experiment testing whether ornamented plumage carries social costs in the red-backed fairywren (Malurus melanocephalus), a small Australian songbird that exhibits delayed but flexible plumage maturation. Only one-quarter of one-year-old male red-backed fairywrens acquire ornamented plumage, but young ornamented males obtain greater reproductive success than young males that retain brown, female-like plumage. We tested whether ornamented plumage is associated with social costs by implanting one-year-old males with testosterone to experimentally induce molt into ornamented plumage, then recorded the resulting social interactions. Testosterone-implanted males developed ornamentation and received more aggression than did control-implanted males without ornamentation, supporting the hypothesis that molt into ornamented plumage is socially costly. Moreover, one-year-old males who paired with a female and naturally acquired ornamented plumage exhibited smaller home ranges than implanted males, suggesting that paired one-year-old males who reduce their home ranges may experience fewer costly interactions with neighbors. Our results add to growing evidence that social costs can enforce the honesty of sexually-selected ornaments.
File preparation date: October 25, 2025
Dates and locations of data collection:
Location: Lake Samsonvale in Queensland, Australia (27° 16’S, 152° 41’E)
Dates: June-August 2017, June-August 2018
Seasons are named for the year the breeding season ends in (i.e., these years correspond to the 2018 and 2019 seasons).
Summary of code and data
Scripts
Implant experiment script_pub.R - analyses for the plumage manipulation experiment - testing whether the aggression received by testosterone and control-implanted males differed. Results appear in Table 1 and Figure 1.
Natural vs T males script_pub.R - compares aggression received by naturally-molting males and testosterone-implanted males. Results appear in the text.
Homerange and molt script_pub.R - compares home range sizes between 1-year-old males of different implant types to naturally ornamented one-year-old males. Results appear in Figure 2.
Territory size reduction simulations_pub.R - simulations to test whether reductions in home range size may be a strategy to reduce interactions with neighboring males. Results appear in Figure 3.
Data file descriptions
NA cells refer to not available data.
Birdlist_implant_males_pub.csv:
Summary: Each row provides information on a one-year-old male in the implant experiment
Columns:
- Year - Year the one-year-old male was active in
- FWnumber - Individual identifier for each bird
- Bird - Colorbands of each bird (see below for a list of colors)
- Sex - Sex of each bird
- Current.Age - Age of the bird in years
- Age.Exact - Whether the male's age was exact or estimated (min)
- Implant - Implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant)
- Implant_date - Date the male was implanted (Year-month-day)
- SG.Year - The male's social group ID and Year
- chases - Number of chases received
- attacks - Number of attacks recieved
- CandA - Sum of chases and attacks
- Breeder - Whether the male was a breeder paired with a female (1) or a helper (0) during the breeding season
- nest - Did we find a nest for the male
- sired - Number of chicks the male sired during the breeding season (within-pair and extra-pair young)
1yo_edgelist_pub.csv:
Summary: Edgelist showing all observed interactions between one-year-old male red-backed fairywrens and other red-backed fairywrens (RBFWs)
Columns:
- bird.year - Color bands of the 1-year-old male RBFW and the year he was 1yo
- sp.ID - Sampling point ID, usually collected every 5 minutes, shows all birds associating in a location at a time
- Bird.x - Color bands of the RBFW the one-year-old male was seen associating with (see below for a list of colors)
- Date - Date of the observation (Year-month-day)
- Time - Time of the observation (Australian Eastern Standard Time AEST)
- Molt.x - Percent Red-black plumage exhibited by Bird.x
- Sex - Sex of Bird.x
- Current.Age - Age of Bird.x in years
- Ageexact. - Whether Bird.x's age was exact or estimated (min)
- Social.Group.x - Bird.x's social group ID
- Bird.y - Color bands of the 1-year-old male RBFW (see below for a list of colors)
- Molt.y - Percent Red-black plumage exhibited by Bird.y
- Social.Group.y - Bird.y's social group ID
- sg.same - Whether Bird.x and Bird.y were in the same social group
- Year - Year (season) the observation was collected
- CandA - Whether Bird.x directed any aggression towards Bird.y
- Implant - Bird.y's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant)
- sg.year - Bird.y's social group and year
1yo_edgelist_t_vs_natural_pub.csv
Summary: Edgelist showing all observed interactions between testosterone-implanted and naturally-molting one-year-old male red-backed fairywrens and other red-backed fairywrens (RBFWs)
Columns:
- bird.year - Color bands of the 1-year-old male RBFW and the year he was 1yo
- sp.ID - Sampling point ID, usually collected every 5 minutes, shows all birds associating in a location at a time
- Bird.x - Color bands of the RBFW the one-year-old male was seen associating with (see below for a list of colors)
- Date - Date of the observation (Year-month-day)
- Time - Time of the observation (Australian Eastern Standard Time AEST)
- Molt.x - Percent Red-black plumage exhibited by Bird.x
- Sex - Sex of Bird.x
- Current.Age - Age of Bird.x in years
- Ageexact. - Whether Bird.x's age was exact or estimated (min)
- Social.Group.x - Bird.x's social group ID
- Bird.y - Color bands of the 1-year-old male RBFW (see below for a list of colors)
- Molt.y - Percent Red-black plumage exhibited by Bird.y
- Social.Group.y - Bird.y's social group ID
- sg.same - Whether Bird.x and Bird.y were in the same social group
- Year - Year (season) the observation was collected
- CandA - Whether Bird.x directed any aggression towards Bird.y
- Implant - Bird.y's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant)
- sg.year - Bird.y's social group and year
1yo_gps_18_pub.csv
Summary: Waypoint locations for one-year-old males collected during obsevations of non-breeding social groups
Columns:
- WP - Waypoint ID
- Sighting - Sampling point ID, usually collected every 5 minutes
- Observation - Observation ID, observations were usually 15-60 minutes, with sightings collected every 5 minutes
- Date - Date of the sighting (Year-month-day)
- Time - Time of the sighting (Australian Eastern Standard Time AEST)
- Bird - Color bands of the 1-year-old male the waypoint is associated with (see below for a list of colors)
- lat - Latitude
- lon - Longitude
- Bird.year - Color bands and year (season)
- Implant - The one-year-old male's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant)
1yo_gps_19_pub.csv
Summary: Waypoint locations for one-year-old males collected during obsevations of non-breeding social groups
Columns:
- WP - Waypoint ID
- Sighting - Sampling point ID, usually collected every 5 minutes
- Observation - Observation ID, observations were usually 15-60 minutes, with sightings collected every 5 minutes
- Date - Date of the sighting (Year-month-day)
- Time - Time of the sighting (Australian Eastern Standard Time AEST)
- Bird - Color bands of the 1-year-old male the waypoint is associated with (see below for a list of colors)
- lat - Latitude
- lon - Longitude
- Bird.year - Color bands and year (season)
- Implant - The one-year-old male's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant)
1yo_homerange_males_pub.csv
Summary: Data for the one-year-old males used in the home range analysis (Implant males and naturally ornamented males)
Columns:
- Bird - The one-year-old male's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Year - Year the one-year-old male was active in
- SG.Year - The one-year-old male's social group and year
- Sex - Sex
- Current.Age - Age in years
- Age.Exact - Whether the male's age was exact or estimated (min)
- Implant - The one-year-old male's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant,
- Natural = naturally ornamented)
- Bird.year - Bird and year
akde18_list_pub.csv
Summary: Home range size data for one-year-old males, generated in Homerange and molt script_pub.R
Columns:
- Bird - The one-year-old male's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Year - Year the one-year-old male was active in
- SG.Year - The one-year-old male's social group and year
- Sex - Sex
- Current.Age - Age in years
- Age.Exact - Whether the male's age was exact or estimated (min)
- Implant - The one-year-old male's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant,
- Natural = naturally ornamented)
- Bird.year - Bird and year
- akde - Auto-correlated Kernel Density Estimate - home range size in hectares for each 1-year-old male
akde19_list_pub.csv
Summary: Home range size data for one-year-old males, generated in Homerange and molt script_pub.R
Columns:
- Bird - The one-year-old male's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Year - Year the one-year-old male was active in
- SG.Year - The one-year-old male's social group and year
- Sex - Sex
- Current.Age - Age in years
- Age.Exact - Whether the male's age was exact or estimated (min)
- Implant - The one-year-old male's implant type (C = control, T = testosterone, None = no implant,
- Natural = naturally ornamented)
- Bird.year - Bird and year
- akde - Auto-correlated Kernel Density Estimate - home range size in hectares for each 1-year-old male
associations18_pub.csv
Summary: All non-breeding associations among red-backed fairywrens in the 2018 season
Columns:
- Sighting - Sampling point ID, usually collected every 5 minutes, birds with the same sampling point ID were seen assocating at that point in time
- Observation - Observation ID, observations were usually 15-60 minutes, with sightings collected every 5 minutes
- Date - Date of the sighting (month/day/year)
- Time - Time of the sighting (Australian Eastern Standard Time AEST)
- WP - Waypoint ID
- Bird - Bird's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
associations19_pub.csv
Summary: All non-breeding associations among red-backed fairywrens in the 2019 season
Columns:
- Sighting - Sampling point ID, usually collected every 5 minutes, birds with the same sampling point ID were seen assocating at that point in time
- Observation - Observation ID, observations were usually 15-60 minutes, with sightings collected every 5 minutes
- Date - Date of the sighting (month/day/year)
- Time - Time of the sighting (Australian Eastern Standard Time AEST)
- WP - Waypoint ID
- Bird - Bird's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
Ages_and_Sexes_2018_pub.csv
Summary: Age and sex data for all red-backed fairywrens in the 2018 season network data (associations)
Columns:
- Year - Year/Season
- FWNo - Individual identifier for each bird
- Bird - Bird's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Sex - Sex
- Current.Age - Age of the bird in the 2018 season in years
- Ageexact - Whether the bird's age was exact or estimated (min)
Ages_and_Sexes_2019_pub.csv
Summary: Age and sex data for all red-backed fairywrens in the 2019 season network data (associations)
Columns:
- Year - Year/Season
- FWNo - Individual identifier for each bird
- Bird - Bird's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Sex - Sex
- Current.Age - Age of the bird in the 2019 season in years
- Ageexact - Whether the bird's age was exact or estimated (min)
birdlist18_pub.csv
Summary: List of birds in the social network data (associations) in the 2018 season and their social group identities
Columns:
- Bird - The bird's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Social.Group - Social group the bird was a part of
birdlist19_pub.csv
Summary: List of birds in the social network data (associations) in the 2019 season and their social group identities
Columns:
- Bird - The bird's color bands (see below for a list of colors)
- Social.Group - Social group the bird was a part of
List of color band acronyms:
- B = Blue
- G = Green (light green)
- H = Hot pink
- I = Ivy (dark green)
- L = Light blue
- R = Royal purple
- V = Black/white striped
- W = White
- Y = Yellow
- Z = Purple/white striped
R Session info:
R version 4.0.4 (2021-02-15)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS 13.7.8
Matrix products: default
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.0/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib
locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8
attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
other attached packages:
[1] emmeans_1.5.5-1 ggdist_3.2.1 asnipe_1.1.15 sp_1.4-5 lmerTest_3.1-3 ctmm_0.6.0 reshape2_1.4.4 plotrix_3.8-1
[9] glmmTMB_1.0.2.1 car_3.0-10 carData_3.0-4 DHARMa_0.4.1 lme4_1.1-27 Matrix_1.3-2 cowplot_1.1.1 ggplot2_3.5.1
[17] dplyr_1.0.7 here_1.0.1
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] Rcpp_1.0.8.3 mvtnorm_1.1-1 lattice_0.20-41 zoo_1.8-9 assertthat_0.2.1 rprojroot_2.0.2
[7] foreach_1.5.1 utf8_1.2.2 R6_2.5.1 cellranger_1.1.0 plyr_1.8.6 coda_0.19-4
[13] pillar_1.9.0 rlang_1.1.0 curl_4.3 multcomp_1.4-16 readxl_1.3.1 rstudioapi_0.13
[19] minqa_1.2.4 data.table_1.14.0 raster_3.4-13 nloptr_1.2.2.2 splines_4.0.4 stringr_1.5.0
[25] foreign_0.8-81 TMB_1.7.20 munsell_0.5.0 numDeriv_2016.8-1.1 compiler_4.0.4 pkgconfig_2.0.3
[31] tidyselect_1.2.0 tibble_3.1.4 rio_0.5.26 codetools_0.2-18 fansi_0.5.0 withr_2.5.2
[37] MASS_7.3-53.1 distributional_0.3.2 grid_4.0.4 nlme_3.1-152 xtable_1.8-4 gtable_0.3.6
[43] lifecycle_1.0.3 DBI_1.1.1 magrittr_2.0.3 scales_1.3.0 zip_2.1.1 estimability_1.3
[49] cli_3.6.1 stringi_1.7.4 farver_2.1.0 ellipsis_0.3.2 generics_0.1.3 vctrs_0.6.2
[55] boot_1.3-27 sandwich_3.0-0 openxlsx_4.2.3 TH.data_1.0-10 iterators_1.0.13 tools_4.0.4
[61] forcats_0.5.1 glue_1.6.2 hms_1.0.0 abind_1.4-5 survival_3.5-5 colorspace_2.0-2
[67] haven_2.3.1