DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wm37pvmwd
title: Data from: Effect of parasite infection and invasion history on feeding, growth and energy allocation of cane toads

description: The energy allocation decisions that organisms make can differ between
 sexes and populations and be influenced by factors such as age and
 parasite infection. We conducted experimental parasite infections on
 common-garden reared cane toads originating from sites across the species’
 invasive range in Australia to assess how sex, parasite infection and
 invasion history affected the toad’s food intake, growth rate and organ
 weights. Female toads had larger fat stores, larger livers and larger
 gonads than did males, reflecting increased investment into gametes.
 Growth rate did not differ between the sexes. Lungworm infection increased
 feeding by male but not female toads and increased fat storage in all
 toads. Fat body, liver, gonad sizes and feeding rates all differed among
 toads from different locations within the toad’s invasion transect across
 Australia, even though our measurements were made under standardized
 conditions on captive animals. Toads from populations close to the
 invasion front ate more and had heavier fatbodies, and livers than did
 toads from long-colonised areas, but they had smaller gonads. This pattern
 reflects the evolution of a more dispersive phenotype among invasive
 populations, whereby the rate of dispersal is enhanced by increased energy
 intake and storage, and delayed reproduction.
description: Data are measures and identifying information for individual cane
 toads <em>(Rhinella marina</em>) experimentally infected with
 a lungworm parasite ( <em>Rhabdias
 p</em><em>seudosphaerocephala</em>.)
description: # Data from: Effect of parasite infection and invasion history on feeding,
 growth and energy allocation of cane toads
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wm37pvmwd](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wm37pvmwd) ## Description of the data and file structure Data are from an experiment where cane toads from different sites were exposed to lungworm parasites from different sites. Toads were then individually housed and maintained in captivity for 4 months. After 4 months toads were euthanized and their level of infection was determined and their gonads, liver, and fat bodies were weighed. 'na' indicates values that were not measured Variables in the dataset are: **Variable                     explanation** ID                                Individual toad identifier Treatment                  Control vs exposed to parasite larvae from 1 of 6 sites Sex                              sex of each toad, Male or Female Litter                           family identifier of each toad toad site                      capture location of parental toads toad state                    Australian state each toad site is located in Exposed?                    Exposed to larvae Yes vs No infected?                     Adult parasites present in the lungs at postmortem Yes vs No worm state                  Australian state each parasite location is located in.'null' indicates uninfected Controls total gonad wt            gonad mass(g) fat wt                            fat body mass (g) liver wt                         liver mass (g) Total Rhabdias            number of adult parasites in the lungs at postmortem final SVL                       snout-vent length at end of study (mm) final mass                    body mass at end of study (g) start SVL                     snout-vent length at beginning of study (mm) SVL2-SVL1                  change in SVL during study  (mm) SVL Growth rate        daily growth rate in snout-vent length during study (mm/day) Total food eaten         amount of food consumed during study (g) Missing data code: na