Data and R code from: Socio-ecological factors shaping the ontogenetic trajectories of sibling conflict among Lamprologine cichlids
Data files
Sep 17, 2026 version files 726.50 KB
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ASR.R
6.82 KB
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Bayesian_phylogenetic_generalized_additive_mixed_model_.R
11.17 KB
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Bayesian_structural_equation_modell.R
6.26 KB
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README.md
11.98 KB
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sib_com_with_progress_quartile.csv
195.66 KB
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sib_com_with_progress.csv
182.53 KB
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sib_com.csv
139.50 KB
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sibcom_PPA_progress1.csv
65.51 KB
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sibcom_PPA_progress2.csv
51.05 KB
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sibcom_PPA_progress3.csv
46.90 KB
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species_attack_rate.csv
463 B
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β_fitting.R
8.64 KB
Abstract
Understanding conflict among family members has been a long-standing quest in evolutionary biology; however, the selective forces shaping aggressive competition among siblings are still poorly resolved. Crucially, explaining the evolution of sibling aggression requires more than comparing mean aggression levels across species; it demands identifying the specific ecological and social conditions under which aggression is expressed across development. Using standardized field observations of 1,892 juveniles from 52 African cichlid species, we examined how socioecological factors influence the timing and intensity of sibling aggression. We found that overt sibling aggression was observed only in the Lake Tanganyika-endemic tribe lamprologini, and species differed markedly in their ontogenetic trajectories of aggression. Bayesian phylogenetic generalized additive models and structural equation modeling revealed that aggression increased with reliance on benthic resources and declined with juvenile density. Density exerted a consistent suppressive effect across the parental care period, whereas the effect of benthic feeding dependence diminished at late developmental stages. Moreover, parental care mode functioned as an upstream determinant shaping juvenile spatial and feeding ecology, thereby indirectly influencing the evolution of sibling aggression. Group-living was not associated with a clear uniform increase in aggression across development, but was associated with a shift in conflict toward early ontogeny. We show that what evolves is not only the intensity of aggression, but also its ontogenetic trajectory, highlighting the importance of temporal architecture in the evolution of intra-family conflict.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.p2ngf1w5w
Description of the data and file structure
Files and variables
File: Bayesian_phylogenetic_generalized_additive_mixed_model_.R
Description: R script for reproducing the Bayesian phylogenetic generalized additive mixed model described in the manuscript
File: Bayesian_structural_equation_modell.R
Description: R script for reproducing the Bayesian structural equation model described in the manuscript.
File: sib_com.csv
Description: The primary behavioral dataset for juveniles.
Variables
- species: name of species
- Tribe: name of tribe of focal species
- scientific_names: scientific_names of focal individuals
- population: The locality or population in which the behavioral observations were conducted.
- no: identity number
- density: density of juveniles in breeding nest.
- broodsize: total number of juveniles in brood
- no_planfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on plankton during the observation period.
- no_bentfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on benthic prey during the observation period.
- no_attack: The number of sibling aggression against broodmate during the observation period.
- aggressive_interaction: Whether the focal individual engaged in aggressive interactions during the observation period.
- size: body size of focal individual (in mm)
- parent-touching_behavior: The number of times the focal individual pecked at a parent during the observation period.
- breeding_habitat: type of breeding habitat
- social_system: type of social system (groupliving: species with group-living, non-group-living: species without group-living).
File: sib_com_with_progress_quartile.csv
Description: A data sheet in which progress of care has been added to sib_com.csv.
Variables
- species: species code, followed by Ronco et al. (2021).
- Tribe: name of tribe of focal species
- scientific_names: scientific_names of focal individuals
- population: The locality or population in which the behavioral observations were conducted.
- no: identity number
- density: density of juveniles in breeding nest.
- broodsize: total number of juveniles in brood
- no_planfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on plankton during the observation period.
- no_bentfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on benthic prey during the observation period.
- no_attack: The number of sibling aggression against broodmate during the observation period.
- aggressive_interaction: Whether the focal individual engaged in aggressive interactions during the observation period.
- size:body size of focal individual (in mm)
- parent.touching_behavior: The number of times the focal individual pecked at a parent during the observation period.
- breeding_habitat: type of breeding habitat
- social_system: type of social system (groupliving: species with group-living, non-group-living: species without group-living).
- size_max_sp: The body size of the largest individual observed for that species.
- progress: a developmental stage index. We assumed a minimum size of 5 mm at the onset of parental care. Developmental progress was then normalized to a 0–1 scale using the following transformation: care-stage progress = (standard length of the focal individual − 5 mm) / (maximum standard length of the focal species − 5 mm).
- progress_c: The centered value of progress.
- parental_care: type of parental care.
- progress_group: A category created by dividing care progress into four equal intervals.
File: sib_com_with_progress.csv
Description: A data sheet in which progress of care has been added to sib_com.csv.
Variables
- species: species code, followed by Ronco et al. (2021).
- Tribe: name of tribe of focal species
- scientific_names: scientific_names of focal individuals
- population: The locality or population in which the behavioral observations were conducted.
- no: identity number
- density: density of juveniles in breeding nest.
- broodsize: total number of juveniles in brood
- no_planfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on plankton during the observation period.
- no_bentfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on benthic prey during the observation period.
- no_attack: The number of sibling aggression against broodmate during the observation period.
- aggressive_interaction: Whether the focal individual engaged in aggressive interactions during the observation period.
- size:body size of focal individual (in mm)
- parent.touching_behavior: The number of times the focal individual pecked at a parent during the observation period.
- breeding_habitat: type of breeding habitat
- social_system: type of social system (groupliving: species with group-living, non-group-living: species without group-living).
- size_max_sp: The body size of the largest individual observed for that species.
- progress: a developmental stage index. We assumed a minimum size of 5 mm at the onset of parental care. Developmental progress was then normalized to a 0–1 scale using the following transformation: care-stage progress = (standard length of the focal individual − 5 mm) / (maximum standard length of the focal species − 5 mm).
- progress_c: The centered value of progress.
- parental_care: type of parental care.
File: sibcom_PPA_progress1.csv
Description: Data sheets for the Bayesian structural equation model, created by splitting sib_com_with_progress_quartile.csv according to progress_group.
Variables
- species: species code, followed by Ronco et al. (2021).
- Tribe: name of tribe of focal species
- scientific_names: scientific_names of focal individuals
- population: The locality or population in which the behavioral observations were conducted.
- no: identity number
- density: density of juveniles in breeding nest.
- broodsize: total number of juveniles in brood
- no_planfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on plankton during the observation period.
- no_bentfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on benthic prey during the observation period.
- no_attack: The number of sibling aggression against broodmate during the observation period.
- aggressive_interaction: Whether the focal individual engaged in aggressive interactions during the observation period.
- size:body size of focal individual (in mm)
- parent.touching_behavior: The number of times the focal individual pecked at a parent during the observation period.
- breeding_habitat: type of breeding habitat
- social_system: type of social system (groupliving: species with group-living, non-group-living: species without group-living).
- size_max_sp: The body size of the largest individual observed for that species.
- progress: a developmental stage index. We assumed a minimum size of 5 mm at the onset of parental care. Developmental progress was then normalized to a 0–1 scale using the following transformation: care-stage progress = (standard length of the focal individual − 5 mm) / (maximum standard length of the focal species − 5 mm).
- progress_c: The centered value of progress.
- parental_care: type of parental care.
- progress_group: A category created by dividing care progress into four equal intervals.
File: ASR.R
Description: R script for ancestral state reconstruction.
File: sibcom_PPA_progress2.csv
Description: Data sheets for the Bayesian structural equation model, created by splitting sib_com_with_progress_quartile.csv according to progress_group.
Variables
- species: species code, followed by Ronco et al. (2021).
- Tribe: name of tribe of focal species
- scientific_names: scientific_names of focal individuals
- population: The locality or population in which the behavioral observations were conducted.
- no: identity number
- density: density of juveniles in breeding nest.
- broodsize: total number of juveniles in brood
- no_planfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on plankton during the observation period.
- no_bentfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on benthic prey during the observation period.
- no_attack: The number of sibling aggression against broodmate during the observation period.
- aggressive_interaction: Whether the focal individual engaged in aggressive interactions during the observation period.
- size:body size of focal individual (in mm)
- parent.touching_behavior: The number of times the focal individual pecked at a parent during the observation period.
- breeding_habitat: type of breeding habitat
- social_system: type of social system (groupliving: species with group-living, non-group-living: species without group-living).
- size_max_sp: The body size of the largest individual observed for that species.
- progress: a developmental stage index. We assumed a minimum size of 5 mm at the onset of parental care. Developmental progress was then normalized to a 0–1 scale using the following transformation: care-stage progress = (standard length of the focal individual − 5 mm) / (maximum standard length of the focal species − 5 mm).
- progress_c: The centered value of progress.
- parental_care: type of parental care.
- progress_group: A category created by dividing care progress into four equal intervals.
File: sibcom_PPA_progress3.csv
Description: Data sheets for the Bayesian structural equation model, created by splitting sib_com_with_progress_quartile.csv according to progress_group.
Variables
- species: species code, followed by Ronco et al. (2021).
- Tribe: name of tribe of focal species
- scientific_names: scientific_names of focal individuals
- population: The locality or population in which the behavioral observations were conducted.
- no: identity number
- density: density of juveniles in breeding nest.
- broodsize: total number of juveniles in brood
- no_planfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on plankton during the observation period.
- no_bentfeed: The number of times the juvenile fed on benthic prey during the observation period.
- no_attack: The number of sibling aggression against broodmate during the observation period.
- aggressive_interaction: Whether the focal individual engaged in aggressive interactions during the observation period.
- size:body size of focal individual (in mm)
- parent.touching_behavior: The number of times the focal individual pecked at a parent during the observation period.
- breeding_habitat: type of breeding habitat
- social_system: type of social system (groupliving: species with group-living, non-group-living: species without group-living).
- size_max_sp: The body size of the largest individual observed for that species.
- progress: a developmental stage index. We assumed a minimum size of 5 mm at the onset of parental care. Developmental progress was then normalized to a 0–1 scale using the following transformation: care-stage progress = (standard length of the focal individual − 5 mm) / (maximum standard length of the focal species − 5 mm).
- progress_c: The centered value of progress.
- parental_care: type of parental care.
- progress_group: A category created by dividing care progress into four equal intervals.
File: β_fitting.R
Description: R script for performing the beta fitting.
File: species_attack_rate.csv
Description:The species-specific parameters describing the trajectory of aggression occurrence estimated by beta fitting.
Variables
- species: name of species
- total_attack: The total frequency of aggression across the entire parental care period, estimated by beta fitting.
Code/software
R (ver. 4.4.2): R Core Team, R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. (2023). Deposited 2023.