This is the behavioral data file that corresponds to the behavioral data reported in "A learning experience elicits sex-dependent neurogenomic responses in Bicyclus anyana butterflies" by D.A. Ernst, G.A. Agcaoili, A.N. Merrill, & E. L. Westerman, published in Molecular Ecology. It contains one spreadsheet, with all the behavioral data corresponding to the training, trainer, and naive butterflies utilized in the comparative brain and eye transcriptomics analyses conducted in the manuscript. In our study, we show that male and female B. anynana butterflies exhibit sexually dimorphic gene expression in the brain and eye during a learning event. We further identify genes that were associated with learning independent of sex and show that a number of genes known to influence wing pattern are also differentially expressed in the brain and eye during a mate choice learning event. The sexually dimorphic expression was not the result of baseline differences in activity levels, as males and females exhibited similar amounts of behavior during the training and naive experiences.

These data were collected during observations of training and naive assays of Bicyclus anynana female and male butterflies using SpectatorGo! software. Here we report the raw data for these training and naive assays.

This data set contains the butterfly behavioral observations that correspond to the 3hr training and naive experiences of the newly emerged focal butterflies used for brain and eye transcriptome comparisons in “A learning experience elicits sex-dependent neurogenomic responses in Bicyclus anynana butterflies”. It also contains the behavioral data for the sexually mature trainer butterflies (both male and female) that were used in the training periods.

“Subjects” refers to the butterfly name in the SpectatorGO! Software, with C1 referring to Cage 1, and C2 referring to Cage 2.

“Treatment” indicates status of individual, with “trained” being a newly emerged focal butterfly, “trainer” being a sexually mature butterfly of the opposite sex of the “trained” butterfly, and “naive” indicating a butterfly housed alone and visually isolated from other butterflies. The “trained” and “trainer” butterflies were visually isolated from all other butterflies.

There is no duration data for “flutter” or “antennae wiggle” because those two behaviors were recorded as instances, not durations.

Durations of less than 0.5 seconds were recorded by SpectatorGO! as a duration of 0.

Count % and Duration % were calculated by SpectatorGO!, and are included in this dataset, even though only Count and Duration data were used in the manuscript.

Butterflies that copulated during the training period were not used for the RNASeq experiment, as we did not want to confound neurological responses to training and copulating.