README for Hopson and Fox 2018 Journal of Animal Ecology, “Occasional long-distance dispersal increases spatial synchrony of population cycles” ********************* Below are descriptions of the data and analysis files associated with this paper. Summer 2016 Data - 8.26.csv: Comma delimited spreadsheet containing the raw data. It is comprised of the following columns: date: date on which sample was collected, in month/day/year format day: day of experiment on which the sample was collected. The start of the experiment was designated day 0. jar.no: unique identifying number of the jar from which the sample was collected samp.vol: sample volume, in ml dil.vol: volume to which the original sample was diluted before counting prey (if it was), in ml. 0 indicates that the original sample was not diluted before counting sub.samp.vol: volume of subsample taken from the diluted sample, in ml. 0 indicates that the original sample was not diluted before counting prey and so no subsample was taken. eupl: number of Euplotes (predators) counted. Euplotes were counted in the undiluted sample, before the sample was diluted and subsampled (if it was) tet: number of Tetrahymena (prey) counted in the sample. If the sample was diluted and subsampled, this is the number of prey counted in the subsample. Summer 2016 treatment layout.csv: comma delimited spreadsheet recording which metapopulation each jar was a part of, and which dispersal treatment each metapopulation was subjected to. It is comprised of the following columns: jar.no: unique number identifying each jar metapop.no: unique number identifying each metapopulation patch.no: the 15 jars comprising each ring-shaped metapopulation were numbered in order from 1-15. trt: the dispersal treatment to which the metapopulation was subjected. sw stands for “small world”, which was our original name for the treatment that the paper refers to as “occasional long distance dispersal”. nn stands for “nearest neighbor”, which was our original name for the treatment that the paper refers to as “strictly short distance dispersal”. time.block: The experiment was blocked by time. Metapopulations in time block 2 started shortly after those in time block 1. T thesis code experimental - for data dryad.R: text file containing the R script for calculating time series of species’ densities, their cross-correlations, and their wavelet transforms. The R software needed to run the analysis script can be downloaded from https://r-project.org. Questions? In the fortunate event that Data Dryad, the University of Calgary, and Jeremy Fox all still exist, you may email questions to corresponding author Jeremy Fox, jefox@ucalgary.ca. In the unfortunate event that one or more of those entities no longer exist, you’re on your own. Although I suspect that any world in which one or more of those entities no longer exist is unlikely to contain anyone who would want these data…