Data from: Senescence and early-life performance as predictors of lifespan in a solitary bee
Data files
Mar 11, 2025 version files 114.92 KB
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Activity.csv
28.51 KB
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CCRT.csv
24.22 KB
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README.md
4 KB
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RMR.csv
46.36 KB
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Survival.csv
11.82 KB
Abstract
Performance tends to decline with age, including muscle function and stress tolerance. Yet, performance can vary widely among individuals within the same age group, showing that chronological age does not always represent biological age. To better understand ageing, we need to examine what drives some individuals to age faster than others. In order to achieve this, first we need to be able to predict whether an individual will have a long or short lifespan. In this study, we conducted a longitudinal study tracking individual-level locomotor activity, chill-coma recovery time, and metabolic rates, and assessed whether early-life performance is linked to lifespan using the solitary bee Megachile rotundata. We found that locomotor activity and chill-coma recovery times decline in old adults. However, resting metabolic rate did not change with age. We also found low cold tolerance and low mass at emergence in early-life are linked to shorter female lifespans, showing that early-life performance can explain some of the variation in lifespan in a population. Finally, these results also show that not all traits decline with age within the same species, and shed new light on sexual dimorphism in physiological traits and ageing.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51cq3
Description of the data and file structure
This README file was generated on 2025-2-18 by Andre Szejner-Sigal
GENERAL INFORMATION
1. Title of Dataset: Dataset: Senescence and early-life performance as predictors of lifespan in a solitary bee
2. Author Information
A. Principal Investigator Contact Information
Name: Andre Szejner-Sigal
Institution: North Dakota State University, Biological Sciences Department
Address: 1340 Bolley Drive, 201 Stevens Hall Fargo, ND 58102
Email: andre.szejner@gmail.com
3. Date of data collection (single date, range, approximate date): Apr - Sep 2023
4. Geographic location of data collection: Data collected at North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota 58102
5. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data: This work was funded by NSF-IOS-2311952, USDA-ARS 3060-21220-032-00D, and USDA-ARS NACA 58-3060-3-023.
SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION
1. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: NA
2. Links to publications that cite or use the data: NA
3. Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: NA
4. Links/relationships to ancillary data sets: NA
5. Was data derived from another source? no
6. Recommended citation for this dataset:
Szejner-Sigal A, Rinehart JP, Bowsher JH, Greenlee KJ (2025), Data from: Senescence and early-life performance as predictors of lifespan in a solitary bee, Dryad, Dataset
Files and variables
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: Activity.csv
1. Number of variables: 7
2. Number of cases/rows: 809
3. Variable List:
box- Housing unit identifier
id- Individual bee identifier (box. color)
age- age of bee (days)
sex- sex of bee (f = female, m = male)
total.act- total locomotor activity (total beam crossings)
age.death- age at death of bee (days)
age.group20- lifespan groupings (1.Short = short-lived bee, 3.Long = long-lived bee, 2.Average = average-lived bee)
4. Missing data codes: appear as NA
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: CCRT.csv
1. Number of variables: 9
2. Number of cases/rows: 601
3. Variable List:
id- Individual bee identifier (box. color)
box- Housing unit identifier
age- age of bee (days)
ccrt.s- chill coma recovery time with unrecovered as 1200s (s)
censor.0- censored individual identifier (0 = censor, 1 = uncensored)
ccrt.na- chill coma recovery time with unrecovered as NA (s)
sex- sex of bee (f = female, m = male)
age.death- age at death of bee (days)
age.group20- lifespan groupings (1.Short = short-lived bee, 3.Long = long-lived bee, 2.Average = average-lived bee)
4. Missing data codes: appear as NA
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: RMR.csv
1. Number of variables: 11
2. Number of cases/rows: 660
3. Variable List:
id- Individual bee identifier (box. color)
age- age of bee (days)
box- Housing unit identifier
sex- sex of bee (f = female, m = male)
age.death- age at death of bee (days)
mass- mass of bee (mg)
mr.co2.ml.min- bee CO2 production rate (ml/min)
mr.o2.ml.min- bee O2 production rate (ml/min)
RER- respiratory exchange ratio
outliers- outliers
age.group20- lifespan groupings (1.Short = short-lived bee, 3.Long = long-lived bee, 2.Average = average-lived bee)
4. Missing data codes: appear as NA
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: Survival.csv
1. Number of variables: 5
2. Number of cases/rows: 460
3. Variable List:
id- Individual bee identifier (box. color)
sex- sex of bee (f = female, m = male)
experiment- phenotyping experiment identifier (1.MR = resting metabolic rate experiment, 2.Activity = locomotor activity experiment, 3.CCRT = chill coma recovery time experiment)
censor.0- censored individual identifier (0 = censor, 1 = uncensored)
age.death- age at death of bee (days)
4. Missing data codes: appear as NA
All details of methods used for data collection and processing can be found in the Materials and Methods Section of Szejner-Sigal et al. 2025. Senescence and early-life performance as predictors of lifespan in a solitary bee. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.