DOI: 10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3g46
title: Relationship between walking activity and flight activity in the red flour beetle <em>Tribolium castaneum</em>

description: Terrestrial animal species often employ both walking and flying as modes
 of locomotion. Although flight facilitates more efficient long-distance
 travel compared to ambulation, it imposes more stringent constraints on
 body mass. Consequently, birds frequently demonstrate an interspecific
 trade-off between their flight and walking capabilities. Despite this, the
 relationship between these two modes of transportation has not been
 explored in insects, which represent the Earth’s most speciose group and
 possess both flight and walking abilities. This study investigated the
 relationship between walking and flight activities in the red flour beetle
 (Tribolium castaneum), a facultatively flying and walking insect. We
 utilized previously established strains selected for either high (H) or
 low (L) walking activity. We then compared flight activity and lipid
 content, which functions as metabolic fuel for flight, between the H and L
 strains. Our findings indicate that H-beetles exhibited significantly
 greater flight activity than L-beetles, demonstrating a positive
 correlation between walking and flying activity in T. castaneum. This
 suggests that, contrary to observations in birds, small insects such as T.
 castaneum do not incur a trade-off between walking and flight.
 Furthermore, L-beetles exhibited a significantly higher proportion of body
 lipid mass, suggesting that individuals with reduced locomotor activity
 tend to accumulate more fat, irrespective of their primary mode of
 movement.
description: # Relationship between walking activity and flight activity in the red
 flour beetle *Tribolium castaneum* Dryad
 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w9ghx3g46 ## 1. Description of the
 dataset This dataset accompanies a study investigating how strain, sex,
 and mating status influence flight activity and lipid content in
 *Tribolium castaneum*. The original Excel file consisted of two sheets
 (“flight” and “lipid”). Following Dryad’s request, these data have now
 been converted into two separate CSV files: *
 `flight_data_Sone_et_al._(2025).csv` * `lipid_data_Sone_et_al._(2025).csv`
 Each CSV corresponds directly to one sheet from the original Excel file.
 ## 2. File overview | File name | Description | Format | |
 ----------------------------------- |
 -------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | | flight
 data\_Sone et al. (2025).csv | Flight activity dataset (formerly sheet
 “flight”). | CSV (.csv) | | lipid data\_Sone et al. (2025).csv | Lipid
 content dataset (formerly sheet “lipid”). | CSV (.csv) | |
 analysis\_code.R | R script for statistical analyses. | R script | |
 README\_flight\_lipid.md | This README file. | Markdown | ## 3. Variable
 descriptions ### Flight dataset | Variable | Description | | ---------- |
 --------------------------------------- | | strain | HW or LW | |
 replicate | a, b, c | | sex | male or female | | copulation | yes or no |
 | time | Time elapsed | | flight | Number of individuals performing flight
 | ### Lipid dataset | Variable | Description | | ------------------- |
 -------------------------------- | | strain | HW or LW | | replicate | a,
 b, c | | sex | male or female | | frozen | Body mass at freezing (mg) | |
 dryA | Dry mass before treatment (mg) | | post-treatment mass | Mass after
 lipid extraction (mg) | | lipid mass | dryA - post-treatment mass | ## 4.
 Software and reproducibility All analyses were conducted using R 4.1.0.
 The included R script reproduces all analyses. ## 5. License and usage
 notes Released under the CC0 license waiver. ## 6. Contact information
 Kentarou Matsumura\ The University of Tokyo\
 [matsumura@g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp](mailto:matsumura@g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp)