Data from: The social formation of fitness: Lifetime consequences of prenatal nutrition and postnatal care in a wild mammal population
Data files
Sep 18, 2024 version files 202.27 KB
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data_Vitikainen___Meniri_et_al._2023_.xlsx
195.67 KB
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README.md
6.60 KB
Abstract
Research in medicine and evolutionary biology suggests that the sequencing of parental investment has a crucial impact on offspring life history and health. Here we take advantage of the synchronous birth system of wild banded mongooses to test experimentally the lifetime consequences to offspring of receiving extra investment prenatally versus postnatally. We provided extra food to half of the breeding females in each group during pregnancy, leaving the other half as matched controls. This manipulation resulted in two categories of experimental offspring in synchronously born litters: (1) ‘prenatal boost’ offspring whose mothers had been fed during pregnancy; and (2) ‘postnatal boost’ offspring whose mothers were not fed during pregnancy but who received extra alloparental care in the postnatal period. Prenatal boost offpsring lived substantially longer as adults, but postnatal boost offspring had higher lifetime reproductive success (LRS) and higher glucocorticoid levels across the lifespan. Both types of experimental offspring had higher LRS than offspring from unmanipulated litters. We found no difference between the two experimental categories of offspring in adult weight, age at first reproduction, oxidative stress, or telomere lengths. These findings are rare experimental evidence that prenatal and postnatal investments have distinct effects in moulding individual life history and fitness in wild mammals.
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This data is published alongside Vitikainen, Meniri et al. 2023 Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B paper (currently in review).
Data contains information on proxies of fitness and physiological markers from a wild population of banded mongooses, from the long term study site of the Banded Mongoose Research Project located in Mweya, Uganda.
Offspring from a previously described feeding experiment (see Marshall et al. 2021 Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23910-6) were followed for quantifying effects of maternal supplementary feeding during pregnancy. As described in Marshall et al., individuals whose mothers had been fed (PREnatal boost offspring, treatment group) were born heavier, whereas individuals whose mothers had not been fed received more care during growth (termed POSTnatal boost offspring). Both treatment groups showed effects. PRE-boost offspring lived longer, whereas POST-boost offspring produced more offspring; there was no difference in adult size, meaning that POST-boost offspring caught up with the PREboost offspring. There were no differences between treatment groups in any of the markers of oxidative stress, nor in telomere length, but POST-boost offspring had higher fecal glucocorticoid levels across the lifespan.
Description of the data and file structure
Analysis files are provided as separate sheets in an excel file. Sheets are named and numbered according to the list of analyses conducted below.
Sheet ‘93READ THIS - ANALYSIS DESCRIPTION’94 provides the analysis desrciptions and the models used for each analysis.
Datasheet VARIABLES LIST provides list and descriptions of the variables in each sheet.
Please also see the Electronic Supplementary Material that is published alongside this article.
Analyses are as follows:
1a. weight at sexual maturity, at 1 years of age. Comparison of experimental groups
1b.weight at sexual maturity, at 1 years of age. Comparison of litter types, experimental or control
2a. Age at first estrus behaviour (days). Comparison of experimental groups
2b. Age at first estrus behaviour (days). Comparison of litter types, exp or control
3a. Age at first reproduction (days). Comparison of experimental groups
3b. Age at first reproduction (days). Comparison of litter types
4a. Lifetime reproductive success. Comparison of experimental groups
4b. Lifetime reproductive success. Comparison of litter types, experimental or control
5 Telomere length at first sampling, median age is 38 days. Comparison of experimental groups
6a. Telomere length across lifespan. Comparison of experimental groups
6b. Telomere length across lifespan. Comparison of litter types
7. Cortisol (fecal glucocorticoids) at first sampling point, comparison of experimental groups
8a. Cortisol (fecal glucocorticoids) across lifespan. Comparison of experimental groups
8b. Cortisol (fecal glucocorticoids) across lifespan. Comparison of litter types
9a. PC, comparison of experimental groups
9b. PC, comparison of litter types
10a. GSH, comparison of experimental groups
10b. GSH, comparison of litter types
11a. SOD, comparison of experimental groups
11b. SOD, comparison of litter types
12a. MDA, comparison of experimental groups
12b. MDA, comparison of litter types
13. Adult survival, experimental groups vs unmanipulated litters and variables as follows:
category Experimental treatment category where C = control (postnatal boost) and T= treatment (fed mother, prenatal boost),
LC litter control i.e. Individual born in an unmanipulated control litter
date.processed_mda Date of sample processing for analysis of mda
birth.litter Litter code for the communal litter that an individual was born into
treatment Experimental treatment group of litter, either some females received supplementary feeding during gestation or not
weight.emerge or em.weight individual weight at emergence from den, at around 4 weeks of age (grams)
emwt emergence weight, standardised
age.at.capture age at which individual was captured
survival whether (1) or not (0) individual survived until the end of the analysis period
age.at.death Individual age at death
cort_ng fecal glucocorticoids, ng per gram of faeces
esc_index escorting index; the proportion of focal watch sessions that the pup was observed to have been escorted by an adult
estrus.age age at first observed estrus-related behaviour (days)
gl glutathione
indiv individual identity code
litter code of the communal litter that an individual was born into
littertype category, experimental or unmanipulated litter (control)
log.gsh glutathione, natural logarithm
lrs Lifetime reproductive success
mda malondialdehyde
mother maternal identity code of the individual
obs.time observation time, to be used as an offset in analysis of reproductive success.
pack social group code of the individual
pc protein carbonyls
plate in analyses of telomere legth, the code of the 96-well plate used for the qPCR reaction.
repage age in days, when the first offspring that was assigned to the individual in question was born
sex male or female
sod superoxide dismutase
TL telomere length, measured using qPCR
tlage, cortage age (days) of individual at physiological sampling (faecal gc’s or telomere length)
wt1y weight at one year of age, at sexual maturity (measured in grams)
y.age individual age in years
Code/Software
Data were analysed using R, with libraries lme4 and Lmertest, models as described in the excel sheet.
Dataset is provided as an MS exel file which can also be opened with Open Office.
Here we report a long running field experiment in a wild cooperative mammal, the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo), which we use to test the lifetime physiological and life history consequences of varying investment received by offspring in prenatal versus postnatal periods of development.
Data was collected as part of the long term field study of Banded Mongoose Research Project, at the field site in Mweya, Uganda, from wild banded mongooses in the study area that are observed in the field and regularly trapped for collection of biological samples. We followed two categories of offspring born in an experimental design where half of the pregnant mongoose females were supplementary fed during gestation. We measured offspring weight, longevity and reproductive success as well as physiological measures: oxidative stress, telomere length and fecal glucocorticoids. Data were combined to the long term data consisting of field observations, on individual life span, helping behaviour and breeding success.