The influence of relatedness on parental reproductive success and offspring fitness in Eastern chipmunks breeding in fluctuating environments
Data files
Mar 12, 2025 version files 572.75 KB
-
Data_IR_vs_Rxy.xlsx
32.34 KB
-
Data_Longevity.xlsx
11.33 KB
-
Data_Parent.xlsx
31.58 KB
-
Data_reprod_success.xlsx
11.83 KB
-
Data_Sire.xlsx
19.27 KB
-
Data_Survival.xlsx
26.11 KB
-
Genotypes.xlsx
434.75 KB
-
README.md
5.54 KB
Abstract
Mate choice and multiple paternity have been widely studied in natural populations, especially in research assessing inbreeding avoidance mechanisms. Ecological factors are expected to affect the costs and benefits of mate choice and multiple paternity, for instance through their effects on availability of partners. However, the relative importance and variation of those costs/benefits across fluctuating environmental contexts remains to be established. Here, we used reproduction data collected over 18 years on a wild population of Eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) to assess the influence of relatedness among mating partners on their reproductive success and on their offspring fitness in different breeding contexts. In southern Québec, chipmunks live in a pulse resource system where they anticipate masting events of the American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and breed during the summer preceding and/or the spring following a mast. We found that, within a litter, less genetically related sires were assigned more offspring than more closely related ones. This relationship was significant during the summer breeding seasons only, which is characterized by high availability of food and mating partners in the environment. Multiple paternity was also more frequent during summer breeding than during spring breeding. We found no additional effect of parental relatedness on the juvenile survival, longevity, or reproductive success of their offspring. Our results could suggest the presence of context-specific inbreeding avoidance mechanisms by females or differential mortality of offspring at early-stages linked to inbreeding depression. Altogether our findings provide a better understanding of the influence of fluctuating environments on reproduction in small mammals.
This dataset contains 6 Excel spreadsheets used to perform all analyses described in the paper The influence of relatedness on parental reproductive success and offspring fitness in Eastern chipmunks breeding in fluctuating environments (Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2025). All methods are described in the paper.
Description of the data and file structure
Data_IR_vs_Rxy.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents Eastern chipmunks data related to juveniles and their parents (Rxy and IR). It contains one line per juvenile.
Juvenile is a column that indicates the Juvenile’s ID
Dam is a column that indicates the Dam’s ID
Sire is a column that indicates the Sire’s ID
Rxy is a column that indicates the Parental relatedness of the juvenile’s parents
IR is a column that indicates the Internal relatedness of the juvenile’s parents (IR; metric of inbreeding obtained from microsatellites multilocus heterozygosity data : higher IR is indicative of higher individual inbreeding)
Data_Longevity.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents Eastern chipmunks data related to the juvenile survival (longevity) analysis. It contains one line per juvenile.
ID_Juv is a column that indicates the Juvenile’s ID
Rxy is a column that indicates the Parental relatedness of the juvenile’s parents
Year is a column that indicates the year the juvenile was captured
Season is a column that indicates the season the juvenile was captured (Su=summer; Sp=spring)
Survival is a column that indicates the number of years the juvenile has survived
Sex is a column that indicates the juvenile’s sex (F=female; M=Male)
Site is a column that indicates the Capture site (possible values are: Site1, Site2, Site3 and Site4)
Data_Parent.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents Eastern chipmunks data related to all the litters with known parents. It contains one line per couple of parents.
Dam is a column that indicates the Dam’s ID
Sire is a column that indicates the Sire’s ID
Rxy is a column that indicates the parental relatedness
Year is a column that indicates the year the litter was born
Season is a column that indicates the season the litter was born (Su=summer; Sp=spring)
N_Juvenile is a column that indicates the number of juveniles in that litter that descended from this couple of parents
Juv_total is a column that indicates the total number of juveniles in that litter
Site is a column that indicates the capture site (possible values are: Site1, Site2, Site3 and Site4)
N_Sire is a column that indicates the number of different sires for that litter
Litter is a column that indicates the litter’s ID
Data_reprod_success.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents Eastern chipmunks data related to the yearly reproductive success of an individual. It contains one line per reproductive event (sometimes multiple lines per individuals).
ID is a column that indicates the ID of the individual
Rxy is a column that indicates the Parental relatedness
Year is a column that indicates the year the juvenile was captured
N_juvenile is a column that indicates the number of juveniles produced that year by this individual
Season is a column that indicates the season in which this reproductive event occurred (Su=summer; Sp=spring)
Sex is a column that indicates the individual’s sex (F=female; M=Male)
Site is a column that indicates the capture site (possible values are: Site1, Site2, Site3 and Site4)
Data_Sire.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents Eastern chipmunks data related to the litters produced by a female over her lifetime as well as to the number of sires that produced these litters. It contains one line per litter.
Dam is a column that indicates the Dam’s ID
Year is a column that indicates the year the litter was born
Season is a column that indicates the season the litter was born (Su=summer; Sp=spring)
Site is a column that indicates the capture site (possible values are: Site1, Site2, Site3 and Site4)
Litter is a column that indicates the Litter’s ID
Number_Litter is a column that indicates the unique number associated to each litter (from 1 to 321)
N_Sire is a column that indicates the number of different sires for that litter
Data_Survival.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents Eastern chipmunks data related to the juvenile survival (binomial) analysis. It contains one line per juvenile.
ID_Juv is a column that indicates the Juvenile’s ID
Rxy is a column that indicates the parental relatedness
Year is a column that indicates the year the juvenile was captured
Season is a column that indicates the season the juvenile was captured (Su=summer; Sp=spring)
Survival is a column that indicates the survival of the juvenile (A value of 0 was assigned to individuals not recaptured in the year following their initial capture and a 1 to those captured at least once)
Sex is a column that indicates the Juvenile’s sex (F=female; M=Male)
Site is a column that indicates the Capture site (possible values are: Site1, Site2, Site3 and Site4)
Genotypes.xlsx
This spreadsheet presents the genotype of all Eastern chipmunks captured in our study system. It contains one line per individuals.
The first column represents the individual’s ID
The following columns contain the whole genotype for that individual (2 columns per microsatellite, containing the same value for homozygotes, or different values in the case of heterozygote). Missing values are represented by “NA”.