DOI: 10.5061/dryad.gv0420c
title: Data from: Deer indirectly alter the reproductive strategy and operational sex ratio of an unpalatable forest perennial

description: Environmental conditions impose restrictions and costs on reproduction.
 Multiple reproductive options exist when increased reproductive costs
 drive plant populations toward alternative reproductive strategies. Using
 four years of demographic data across a deer impact gradient, where deer
 alter the abiotic environment, we parameterize a size-dependent integral
 projection model for a sexually labile and unpalatable forest perennial to
 investigate the demographic processes driving differentiation in the
 operational sex ratio (OSR) of local populations. In addition to a
 relative increase in asexual reproduction, our results illustrate that
 non-trophic indirect effects by overabundant deer on this perennial result
 in delayed female sex expression to unsustainably large plant sizes and
 leads to more pronounced plant shrinkage following female sex expression,
 effectively increasing the cost of reproduction. Among plants of
 reproductive age, increased deer impact decreases the size-dependent
 probability of flowering and reduces reproductive consistency over time.
 This pattern in sex expression skews populations toward female-biased OSRs
 at low deer impact sites and male-biased OSRs at intermediate and high
 deer impact sites. While this shift toward a male-biased OSR may
 ameliorate pollen limitation, it also decreases the effective population
 size when coupled with increased asexual reproduction. The divergence of
 reproductive strategies and reduced lifetime fitness in response to
 indirect deer impacts illustrate the persistent long-term effects of
 overabundant herbivores on unpalatable understory perennials.
description: Metadata and associated
 R codeThis file uses parameter
 estimates calculated in a separate R script (not provided in our
 supplement) and builds three integral projection models (one at each level
 of deer impact). Using the component matrices of the discretized kernel
 matrix K=P+F+C, this script also projects even-aged cohorts of either
 newborn seedlings or clones using matrix P as an individual-based model.
 This document displays the R code we used to generate all demographic
 estimates reported in our article and also most of the figures. The
 required demographic parameters are listed in two comma-separated value
 files (.csv) that are included in with this supplement. Additionally, we
 included the output from the individual-based model projections to
 expedite computation. They are saved as R objects in R data files
 (.Rdata).Bialic-Murphy_etal_2019_AmNat_Rscript.htmlThe vital rate coefficientsVital rate coefficients csv file that is loaded in section 1 of the HTML file.p.vec.csvThe reproductive coefficientsThe reproductive coefficients csv file that is loaded in section 1 of the HTML file.s.vec.csvR data of individual-based model projections for sexually produced offspringSection IV of the metadata HTML file.Age-from-Stage_Sdlngs.RdataR data of individual-based model projections for asexually produced offspringSee section IV of the HTML file.Age-from-Stage_Clones.Rdata