DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90kz
title: Data from: Age-dependent shaping of the social environment in a long-lived seabird – A quantitative genetic approach

description: Individual differences in social behaviour can result in fine-scale
 variation in spatial distribution and, hence, the social environment
 experienced. Given the expected fitness consequences associated with
 differences in social environments, it is imperative to understand the
 factors that shape it. One potential such factor is age. Age-specific
 social behaviour, often referred to as “social ageing”, has only recently
 attracted attention, requiring more empirical work across taxa. Here, we
 use 29 years of longitudinal data collected in a pedigreed population of
 long-lived, colonially breeding common terns (Sterna hirundo) to
 investigate sources of variation in, and quantitative genetic
 underpinnings of, an aspect of social ageing: the shaping of the social
 environment experienced, using the number of neighbours during breeding as
 a proxy. Our analyses reveal age-specific declines in the number of
 neighbours during breeding, as well as selective disappearance of
 individuals with a high number of neighbours. Moreover, we find this
 social trait, as well as individual variation in the slope of the
 age-specific decline, to be heritable. These results suggest that social
 ageing might underpin part of the variation in the overall, multicausal
 ageing phenotype, as well as undergo micro-evolution, highlighting the
 potential role of social ageing as a facilitator for, or constraint of,
 the evolutionary potential of natural populations.
description: # Data from: Age-dependent shaping of the social environment in a
 long-lived seabird – A quantitative genetic approach
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90kz](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4mw6m90kz) ## Description of the data and file structure Data used for models presented in: Age-dependent shaping of the social environment in a long-lived seabird – a quantitative genetic approach by Moiron M., and Bouwhuis S. published in the special issue "Understanding age and society using natural populations" of Philosophical Transactions B For information regarding the analyses, please contact [mariamoironc@gmail.com](mailto:mariamoironc@gmail.com) For information regarding the data, please contact [sandra.bouwhuis@ifv-vogelwarte.de](mailto:sandra.bouwhuis@ifv-vogelwarte.de) If you'd like to use the data, please also contact [sandra.bouwhuis@ifv-vogelwarte.de](mailto:sandra.bouwhuis@ifv-vogelwarte.de) These data are part of those collected in an ongoing individual-based longitudinal population study additional data are likely to be available, and we are often very happy to collaborate provided that none of our own staff or students is working on a conflicting project. ### Files and variables #### File: Moiron\_and\_Bouwhuis\_Phil\_Transc\_Dataset\_Dryad.xlsx **Description:**  ##### Variables *  ID.identity: individual unique identifier * year: year of breeding (i.e., of measurement) * Laying.date: date of the first egg laid by a female in her first clutch of the season (January 1st =1) * age: age of the individual, measured in years after hatching (being 0 = hatching, 1= one year old, and so on) * Npairs: total number of breeding pairs in a given year, being our metric of population density * n.neigbors.4w.ahead.1m: number of active breeding neighbours in a 1-m radius from the focal female in a given year, an active neighbour being any bird that initiated its clutch four weeks before the laying date of the focal bird * n.neigbors.4w.ahead.2m: number of active breeding neighbours in a 2-m radius from the focal female in a given year, an active neighbour being any bird that initiated its clutch four weeks before the laying date of the focal bird * n.neigbors.4w.ahead.3m: number of active breeding neighbours in a 3-m radius from the focal female in a given year, an active neighbour being any bird that initiated its clutch four weeks before the laying date of the focal bird * n.neigbors.4w.ahead.4m: number of active breeding neighbours in a 4-m radius from the focal female in a given year, an active neighbour being any bird that initiated its clutch four weeks before the laying date of the focal bird ##### Files This repository contains R-codes used for a project on quantitative genetics of social ageing using data from a wild common tern population. Specifically, the repository contains R-codes used in the following study: Moiron M, Bouwhuis S. Age-dependent shaping of the social environment in a long-lived seabird – a quantitative genetic approach. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0465 For any further information, please contact: Maria Moiron, email: [mariamoironc@gmail.com](mailto:mariamoironc@gmail.com) Code: All R code is available in the main folder and scripts are numbered in order of use from 001 to 004. Scripts titles should be self-explanatory, but each script contains a "Description of script and Instructions" section with further information.