Data from: Stress-coping styles are associated with energy budgets and variability in energy management strategies in a capital breeder
Data files
Apr 15, 2025 version files 993.91 KB
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Daily_grey_seal_msDat.txt
36.13 KB
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EM_HRV_ManuscriptCode.html
947.25 KB
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README.md
4.06 KB
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Seasonal_grey_seal_msDat.txt
6.47 KB
Abstract
Individuals vary in their stress-coping styles, characterized by specific behavioural and physiological traits that influence their response to stressors. Theory suggests that these traits are linked to underlying metabolic mechanisms that affect energy management strategies. Despite the potential of this powerful comparative approach, few studies have explored how stress-coping styles relate to energy management strategies. Using heart rate telemetry data from a large, capital-breeding pinniped, the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), we sought to investigate the relationship that stress-coping styles may have on energy management strategies. Background energy expenditures, a proxy for metabolic rate and other background processes, and daily energy expenditures were found to be individually repeatable in grey seal mothers across successive breeding seasons. Proactive individuals, associated with more bold and aggressive phenotypes, exhibited consistently higher background and daily energy expenditures than reactive females. However, reactive phenotypes were more variable overall in energy management strategy, highlighting greater flexibility in their energy management strategy. Our results highlight key energetic trade-offs associated with stress-coping styles in grey seal mothers during this short but critical life-history stage; proactive individuals tended to exhibit a single pattern of energy management, expending greater energy while incurring greater risk of overspending, than those with a more reactive phenotype.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.stqjq2cbm
Description of the data and file structure
Using heart rate telemetry data from a large, capital-breeding pinniped, we sought to investigate the influence that stress-coping styles have on energy management strategies. To do this, we first evaluated the repeatability of energy usage (energy management strategy) in grey seal mothers over multiple consecutive breeding seasons (file: Daily_grey_seal_msDat.txt). We then investigated the associations that stress-coping styles (resting heart rate variability) may have with energy use and management strategies among grey seals (file: Seasonal_grey_seal_msDat.txt). All code used in the analysis and figures presented in text is included in the RMarkdown html document.
Files and variables
File: Daily_grey_seal_msDat.txt
Description: Data file for assessing individual repeatability of energy management parameter estimates (from Shuert et al. 2020) for each day of study (daily values).
Variables
- ID: Unique grey seal mother id
- Year: Breeding year of study
- DDate: Date that heart rate variables were collected
- min_fH: Daily minimum of mean heart rate (minimum daily mean heart rate value), a proxy for background energy expenditure (beats/min)
- mean_fH: Daily mean heart rate, a proxy for daily energy expenditure (beats/min)
- d.aux_fH: Auxiliary heart rate (min_fH subtracted from mean_fH), a proxy for activity-specific energy expenditure (beats/min)
- n_seg: Number of sampled heart rate segments used to estimate energy management heart rate proxies
- Z_rMSSD.adj.RPCALL: Standardized estimate of resting heart rate variability (rHRV) derived using the root mean square of successive differences (rMSSD) of inter-beat intervals.
- rMSSD.adj.RPCALL: Unstandardized estimate of resting heart rate variability (rHRV) derived using the root mean square of successive differences (rMSSD) of inter-beat intervals.
- MS.MDML.NEW: Estimated maternal daily mass loss rate (kg/day)
File: Seasonal_grey_seal_msDat.txt
Description: Seasonal data of resting heart rate variability (rHRV) used to assess against estimates of energy management strategy proxies.
Variables
- ID: Unique grey seal mother id
- Year: Breeding year of study
- min_fH: Daily minimum of mean heart rate (minimum mean heart rate value), a proxy for background energy expenditure (beats/minute)
- mean_fH: Daily mean heart rate, a proxy for daily energy expenditure (beats/minute)
- c_min_fH: Energy management strategy slope
- z.year_rMSSD: Standardized yearly estimate of resting heart rate variability (rHRV) derived using the root mean square of successive differences (rMSSD) of inter-beat intervals.
- Z_MS.MDML.NEW: Standardized estimated maternal daily mass loss rate (standardized, kg/day)
- sf_01: Binomial indicating whether female abandoned lactation early or not
File: EM_HRV_ManuscriptCode.html
Description: Code used to analyse all data presented in the manuscript. This includes in-depth descriptions of the data, analysis approaches, and figure generation which are described in the main text.
Code/software
Below is a list of the packages and versions used to complete this analysis. Data and analysis were prepared R Version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31 ucrt).
# Not Run
# install.packages("tidyverse",dependencies = T, lib = .libPaths()[1])
# Packages
library(tidyr) # Data manipulation - v1.3.0
library(readr) # File reader - v2.1.4
library(purrr) # Data manipulation - v1.0.2
library(dplyr) # Data manipulation - v1.1.3
library(nlme) # Mixed-effects modelling - v3.1-163
library(viridis) # Colour-blind friendly palettes - v0.6.4
library(ggplot2) # Plotting and figure preparations - v3.4.4
library(rptR) # Repeatability analysis - v0.9.22
library(Matrix) # Support package - v1.6-4
library(lme4)
library(terra)