DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0zpc867b6
title: Data from: Disease refuge or ecological trap: location-specific performance of amphibian hotspot shelters

description: Artificial hotspot shelters have been developed as a conservation tool to
 help frogs thermally escape the amphibian chytrid fungus, a pathogen
 highly sensitive to elevated temperatures. To evaluate how these
 structures perform under contrasting climatic conditions, we deployed
 temperature loggers inside hotspot shelters and beneath wooden board
 analogue retreats at two Australian field sites: a humid subtropical site
 in Sydney (NSW) and a cool semi-arid site in Werribee (VIC). Hourly
 temperatures were recorded throughout winter and used to quantify daily
 microhabitat thermal regimes relevant to chytrid suppression and amphibian
 physiology. The dataset presented here consists of daily site-level
 summaries, including mean temperature, daily maxima and minima, and total
 hours above biologically important thresholds (20 °C, 25 °C, 30 °C),
 derived by averaging across all structures at each site. Ambient
 weather variables from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology are not
 included due to licensing restrictions, but full station metadata are
 provided in the article’s supplementary materials.
description: iButton loggers recorded hourly temperatures inside each hotspot
 shelter and beneath wooden board analogue retreats. For each day and each
 site, temperatures were summarised to daily means, daily maxima and
 minima, and total hours above biologically relevant thermal thresholds (20
 °C, 25 °C, 30 °C). All structure-level values were then averaged to
 produce a single daily site-level value for each variable.
 These site-level summaries were analysed separately for the
 Sydney and Werribee trials using generalised least squares (GLS) models
 with an AR(1) correlation structure to account for temporal
 autocorrelation among days. Models tested how daily microhabitat
 temperatures responded to ambient maximum temperature and solar
 exposure. <em>Note on derived thermal
 metrics:</em> Daily values for hours above
 thermal thresholds (20 °C, 25 °C, 30 °C) and daily mean/max/min
 temperatures represent derived summaries calculated from the raw hourly
 iButton logger records. The underlying raw hourly logger data are not
 included in this repository but can be provided upon reasonable
 request.
description: # Data from: Disease refuge or ecological trap: location-specific
 performance of amphibian hotspot shelters Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.0zpc867b6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0zpc867b6) ##
 Description of the data and file structure Artificial amphibian hotspot
 shelters were deployed at two field sites in Australia (Sydney, NSW and
 Werribee, VIC) to monitor their thermal performance under contrasting
 climatic conditions. iButton temperature loggers were installed inside
 each shelter structure and beneath wooden board analogue retreats,
 recording hourly temperatures throughout the winter monitoring periods.
 These deployments were used to quantify daily microhabitat thermal regimes
 relevant to amphibian physiology and temperature-sensitive disease
 dynamics. ### Files and variables #### File: daily_summaries.csv
 **Description:** Daily site-level microclimate summaries derived from
 hourly iButton temperature logger data collected inside artificial hotspot
 shelters and beneath wooden board analogue retreats at two Australian
 field sites (Sydney, NSW and Werribee, VIC). Values include daily mean
 temperatures, daily maxima and minima, and total hours above biologically
 relevant temperature thresholds. All values represent averages across all
 structures within each site ##### Variables * Site: Field site where
 microclimate loggers were deployed (“Sydney” or “Werribee”) *
 Year: Calendar year of observation * Month: Month (numeric) * Day: Day of
 the month * Week-no: Week of the year (ISO week number) *
 period-day: Sequential day number within the study period for that site *
 Date: Calendar date in DD/M/YYYY format * Elevation-(m): Site elevation
 (meters above sea level) * HH-average-temp: Daily mean shelter temperature
 (°C), average across all shelter loggers at the site * HH-20-25: Number of
 hours during the day when shelter temperature was between 20–25 °C *
 HH-25-30: Number of hours during the day when shelter temperature was
 between 25–30 °C * HH&gt;30: Number of hours during the day when shelter
 temperature exceeded 30 °C * HH &gt;25: Number of hours during the day
 when shelter temperature exceeded 25 °C * HH&gt;20: Number of hours during
 the day when shelter temperature exceeded 20 °C * HH-Av-Max: Average
 *daily maximum* shelter temperature (°C), averaged across all shelter
 loggers * HH-Av-Min: Average *daily minimum* shelter temperature (°C),
 averaged across all shelter loggers * Wood-av-temp: Daily mean
 wood-analogue temperature (°C), averaged across loggers beneath wooden
 boards * W-20-25: Hours per day when wood-analogue temperature was between
 20–25 °C * W-25-30: Hours per day when wood-analogue temperature was
 between 25–30 °C * W&gt;30: Hours per day when wood-analogue temperature
 exceeded 30 °C * W &gt;25: Hours per day when wood-analogue temperature
 exceeded 25 °C * W&gt;20: Hours per day when wood-analogue temperature
 exceeded 20 °C * Wood-Av-Max: Average daily maximum wood-analogue
 temperature (°C) * Wood-Av-Min: Average daily minimum wood-analogue
 temperature (°C) * Air temp bucket: Categorical descriptor of the ambient
 air temperature regime for that day (e.g., “10 to 15”, “15 to 20”), used
 for visualisation ## Code/software The dataset is provided as a standard
 CSV file and can be opened with any common spreadsheet or data-analysis
 software (e.g., Excel, Google Sheets, or R). No code or scripts are
 included with this submission. ## Access information Data was derived from
 the following sources: * Ambient weather variables used in the associated
 analyses were obtained from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM)
 Climate Data Online portal, which is publicly accessible at:\
 [http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/](http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/)\ These data are provided by BOM for research and informational use but cannot be redistributed due to licensing restrictions under the Australian Government Copyright Act and BOM’s own data access conditions. For this reason, BOM-derived variables are not included in the Dryad dataset.\ Station IDs, variables, and date ranges required to re-download these data are provided in the article’s Supplementary Tables S1–S2.