Data from: Quantitative genetics of the use of conspecific and heterospecific social cues for breeding site choice
Cite this dataset
Tolvanen, Jere et al. (2020). Data from: Quantitative genetics of the use of conspecific and heterospecific social cues for breeding site choice [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pzgmsbchv
Abstract
Social information use for decision-making is common and affects ecological and evolutionary processes, including social aggregation, species coexistence and cultural evolution. Despite increasing ecological knowledge on social information use, very little is known about its genetic basis and therefore its evolutionary potential. Genetic variation in a trait affecting an individual's social and non-social environment may have important implications for population dynamics, interspecific interactions and for expression of other, environmentally plastic traits. We estimated repeatability, additive genetic variance and heritability of the use of conspecific and heterospecific social cues (abundance and breeding success) for breeding site choice in a population of wild collared flycatchers Ficedula albicollis. Repeatability was found for two social cues: previous year conspecific breeding success and previous year heterospecific abundance. Yet, additive genetic variances for these two social cues, and thus heritabilities, were low. This suggests that most of the phenotypic variation in the use of social cues and resulting conspecific and heterospecific social environment experienced by individuals in this population stems from phenotypic plasticity. Given the important role of social information use on ecological and evolutionary processes, more studies on genetic versus environmental determinism of social information use are needed.
Methods
The dataset was collected by following collared flycatchers and great tits breeding in nest boxes on Gotland, Sweden. The field data has been further prepared for the uploaded form as described in the Data preparation section and online supporting information of the related paper (Tolvanen et al. 2020 Quantitative genetics of the use of conspecific and heterospecific social cues for breeding site choice, Evolution).
Usage notes
The pedigree data ("Pedigree.csv") contains pruned pedigree specific for the phenotypic data set used.
The phenotypic data ("PhenoData.csv") contains the response variables in the first five columns (note that some contain missing values), followed by the fixed and random effect variables used in the analyses.
Funding
Estonian Research Council, Award: PUT1474
CNRS, Award: 3054, 31520
ANR , Award: ANR-06-JCJC0082
Ministry of Higher Education and Research
Kone Foundation
Kvantum institute
Academy of Finland, Award: 122665, 125720, 314833
Swedish Research Council
Estonian Research Council, Award: PUT1474
CNRS, Award: 3054, 31520
Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Award: ANR-06-JCJC0082
Kone Foundation
Kvantum institute
Swedish Research Council