Data from: The effect of environmental variation on the relationship between survival and risk-taking behaviour in a migratory songbird
Data files
Apr 25, 2024 version files 34.23 KB
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KrenhardtK_JEB-2023-00246_Dryad.csv
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README.md
Abstract
Temporal changes in environmental conditions may play a major role in the year-to-year variation in fitness consequences of behaviours. Identifying environmental drivers of such variation is crucial to understand the evolutionary trajectories of behaviours in natural contexts. However, our understanding of how environmental variation influences behaviours in the wild remains limited. Using data collected over 14 breeding seasons from a collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) population, we examined the effect of environmental variation on the relationship between survival and risk-taking behaviour, a highly variable behavioural trait with great evolutionary and ecological significance. Specifically, using annual recapture probability as a proxy of survival, we evaluated the specific effect of predation pressure, food availability and mean temperature on the relationship between annual recapture probability and risk-taking behaviour (measured as flight initiation distance, FID). We found a negative trend, as the relationship between annual recapture probability and FID decreased over the study years, and changed from positive to negative. Specifically, in the early years of the study, risk-avoiding individuals exhibited a higher annual recapture probability, whereas in the later years, risk-avoiders had a lower annual recapture probability. However, we did not find evidence that any of the considered environmental factors mediated the variation in the relationship between survival and risk-taking behaviour.
README: The effect of environmental variation on the relationship between survival and risk-taking behaviour in a migratory songbird
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3ht
The data underlying this study were collected between 2007 and 2021. In the dataset, each row represents a different Collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) male with information about its identity (i.e., ring), age, territory (i.e., plot and nestbox number), risk-taking behaviour (i.e, FID) and survival to the next year (i.e., recapture probability). The dataset also contains three environmental variables (i.e., predation pressure, temperature and food availability) describing the conditions Collared flycatcher males had to face in a given year.
Description of the data and file structure
Description of the variables:
year: year of FID tests
date: date of FID tests; e.g., 417 is the 17th of April, and 504 is the 4th of May
date_st: standardised date of FID tests (the number of days from the first day in the given year); e.g., 116 is the 116th day in the given year
nestbox_id: number of the exact nestbox where the risk-taking behaviour of a Collared flycatcher male was tested
plot_id: number of the exact plot where a Collared flycatcher male had its nestbox
ring_id: individual identification number of a Collared flycatcher male
ring_year: the combination of the individual identification number of a Collared flycatcher male and year of the test
age_bin: two age categories: 'juv' (i.e., juveniles, one-year-old males) and 'ad' (i.e., adults, two-year-old males and above)
ring_status: 'new' (i.e., a newly ringed male) and 'recap' (i.e., a recaptured male which was already ringed)
FID: Flight Initiation Distance (in meters)
res_FF: relative FID values, which were estimated as residuals from a linear model that contained the square root of (FID+1), the age of the individual, the standardised date of the behavioural test and the year of the behavioural test as predictor variables.
S: a binary variable describing survival to the next year: '0' (i.e., the individual was not recaptured) or '1' (i.e., the individual was recaptured)
temp: temperature (in °C), which shows the average value of the mean daily temperatures calculated for each day between the first and last behavioural tests conducted within a given study year (i.e., one temperature estimate per year)
pred: predation pressure (in %), which shows the proportion of nests that were partially or fully predated from the egg-laying to the nestling-feeding period to the total number of nests (including all breeding bird species) in each year
food: food availability (in grams), which shows the mean of the collected frass mass at the date of the peak of caterpillar biomass
food_bin: binarised food availability: '0' (i.e., ordinary year) or '1' (i.e., gradation year, when the population of caterpillars reached extremely high densities, resulting in almost four times higher food supply than the average food availability in other years)