DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cnp5hqcgg
title: No evidence for paternal age effects on sons or daughters, when accounting for paternal sperm storage

description: A father’s age at conception is predicted to affect not only his own
 fertility but also his offspring’s fitness. Offspring born to old fathers
 are assumed to be less fit than those of young fathers. However, under low
 mating rates, paternal age might be confounded with the duration for which
 mature sperm are stored in fathers prior to ejaculation. Studies that
 disentangle the confounding paternal effects of sperm storage duration
 from those of age, on offspring, are lacking. We use Drosophila
 melanogaster to test the separate and interactive effects of paternal age
 and sexual rest on offspring fitness. As expected, old fathers produce
 fewer offspring than young fathers, however, paternal age does not
 influence the survival or age-dependent reproductive success of sons or
 daughters. Instead, a long duration of paternal sexual rest negatively
 impacts the reproductive success of the conceived sons. Furthermore,
 daughters of low reproductive quality selectively disappear with age, but
 sons do not, highlighting that demographic processes can further modulate
 paternal age effects. Overall, we highlight that paternal age effects
 might not be as pervasive as previously assumed, and suggest that paternal
 sexual rest might be more important in influencing offspring phenotypes.
description: Data was collected via experiments conducted in 2022 and 2023.
 Data were processed on R studio and MS excel.
description: # No evidence for paternal age effects on sons or daughters, when
 accounting for paternal sperm storage
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cnp5hqcgg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cnp5hqcgg) ## Description of the data and file structure Data analysis and data files Software: R v4.3.1 Packages: pacman, tidyverse, dplyr, kableExtra, emmeans, bookdown, performance, remotes, patchwork, ggplot2, gamm4, MCMCglmm, knitr, rmarkdown, lme4, lmerTest, mgcv, DHARMa, coxme, survminer, Rmisc, survival, sjstats, ggpmisc, sjPlot, glmmTMB, MASS, tidymv, plot3D, graphics, reshape, reshape2, AICcmodavg, psych, effectsize, TMB, CoxR2 **Note**: The readme file contains the names of each datafile used in our paper, containing all the data relevant to our study. The metadata for each file is provided below, and includes the column names and their descriptions. **FILES** **Data and code file overview** This data repository consist of two code files and six data files. **Code files**: 1\. sperm storage simple.RMD: code used to analyse data for this experiment/project. The script is run in the same order as is written. 2\. Sperm-storage-simple.html: provides the complete run of our entire code along with results generated in-code. The code is exactly like the file above but in a different format **Data files**: 3\. **f0_survivalData.csv**: Data used for constructing population-level survival curves of fathers in Rep 1 and 2. a. Rep: replicate/block b. ID: Male ID c. Born: date of emergence d. Died: date of death e. LS: lifespan f. Censor: 1- if death was observed, 0- if death was not observed. 4\. **F0ReproductionData.csv**: datasheet for paternal reproductive output. Note: missing cell values for the columns: "F1_assays", "Stripping_offspring", "Stripping_TotalMatings"   means that data on those individuals was not collected and assay on those individuals not conducted. Missing cell values for F1_counts means that those individuals did not have their offspring counted, due to either escaping/dying/or not mating. a. Row_num: Row number b. Rep: Replicate number c. Paternal_ID: ID of the father used for the assay d. Treatment: overall male age and sperm storage duration treatment e. Male_age: age of the male used- O is old, Y is young f. Sperm_age: duration of sexual rest of the father/male- O is long, Y is short g. Mated: whether or not the male mated in the F0 mating assay h. Mating_duration: duration of copulation i. F1_assays: Whether offspring from this male were used for the F1 paternal effects assay j. F1_counts: number of offspring produced by the male k. Stripping_offspring: Number of total offspring produced by the male if used in the stripping assay, with 10 females l. Stripping_TotalMatings: number of females the male mated with and fertilised, in the stripping assay 5\. **F1Reproduction.csv**: datasheet with age-dependent reproductive output for sons and daughters used in the offspring assays a. Obs_num: row number b. Rep: Replicate number c. F1_ID: ID of the individual offspring d. F0_ID: ID of the father who conceived that offspring e. Paternal_age: age of the father who conceived that offspring (old or young) f. Paternal_sperm_age: sexual rest duration of the father who conceived that offspring g. Sex: Sex of the offspring h. F1_Age: Age of the offspring when its reproductive output was assayed i. F2_count: number of offspring conceived by the sons and daughters used in the offspring assays 6\. **F1SurvivalData.csv**: Lifespan data associated with the F1 generation. a. F1_ID: ID of the son/daughter b. Rep: replicate/block number c. Paternal_ID: ID of the father who conceived the offspring d. Paternal_age: age of the father who conceived that offspring (old or young) e. Paternal_sperm_age: sexual rest duration of the father who conceived that offspring f. Paternal_treatment: overall treatment (age and sexual rest) of the father g. Sex: sex of the offspring h. LS: Lifespan of the offspring when recorded i. Censored: 1- if death was observed, 0- if death was not observed. 7\. **stripping_F1.csv**: Datasheet for F0 stripping assay, for offspring count/fecundity data a. Male_ID: ID of the male used in the stripping assay b. Treatment: overall treatment (age and sexual rest) of the F0 male c. Female_ID: ID of the female used in the stripping assay d. Fecundity: number of offspring produced by the male with the specific female in the stripping assay e. Rank: assumed rank of the female in the male’s mating order f. Age: Age of the male 8\. **stripping_fertility.csv**: Datasheet for F0 stripping assay, for male fertility data a. Male_ID: ID of the male used in the stripping assay b. Treatment: overall treatment (age and sexual rest) of the F0 male c. Age: Age of the male d. Fecundity: total fecundity of the male in the stripping assay with 10 females e. N_vials: number of vials used to assay male fecundity with each female in the stripping assay f. Fecundity_perFemales: average number of offspring produced by the male with the fertilised females, in the stripping assay g. N_fertility: Number of females out of 10, that the male fertilised successfully in the stripping assay. **Code/software** Software: R v4.3.1 Packages: pacman, tidyverse, dplyr, kableExtra, emmeans, bookdown, performance, remotes, patchwork, ggplot2, gamm4, MCMCglmm, knitr, rmarkdown, lme4, lmerTest, mgcv, DHARMa, coxme, survminer, Rmisc, survival, sjstats, ggpmisc, sjPlot, glmmTMB, MASS, tidymv, plot3D, graphics, reshape, reshape2, AICcmodavg, psych, effectsize, TMB, CoxR2 ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * 10.17605/OSF.IO/GQ9J2