DOI: 10.5061/dryad.b2rbnzspp
title: Data from: Maternal age effects on offspring lifespan and reproduction vary within a species

description: Across diverse taxa, offspring from older mothers have decreased lifespan
 and fitness. Little is known about the extent to which maternal age
 effects vary among genotypes for a given species, however, except for
 studies of a few arthropod species. To investigate the presence and degree
 of intraspecific variability in maternal age effects, we compared
 lifespan, reproductive schedule, and lifetime reproductive output of
 offspring produced by young, middle-aged, and old mothers in four strains
 of rotifers in the Brachionus plicatilis species complex. We found
 significant variability among strains in the magnitude and direction of
 maternal age effects on offspring life history traits. In one strain,
 offspring of young mothers lived 20% longer than offspring of old mothers,
 whereas there were no significant effects of maternal age on lifespan for
 other strains. Depending on strain, advanced maternal age had positive
 effects, negative effects, or no effect on lifetime reproductive output.
 Across strains, older mothers produced offspring that had higher maximum
 daily reproduction early in life. Effects of maternal age on offspring
 vital rates could not be explained by changes in trade-offs between
 lifespan and reproduction. This study documents intraspecific variability
 in maternal age effects in an additional clade. Investigating
 intraspecific variability is critical for understanding the ubiquity of
 maternal age effects and their role in the evolution of life history and
 aging.
description: # Data from: Maternal age effects on offspring lifespan and reproduction
 vary within a species
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b2rbnzspp](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b2rbnzspp) ## Description of the data and file structure Details for raw data files: **‘survival.csv’ contains survivorship data over time.** There is a column for each day of the experiment (1-28), and each row contains data for a single individual. ‘1’ indicates that the individual was alive on that day ‘0’ indicates that the individual was dead on that day ‘NA’ indicates that the individual was lost, due to issues with transferring, or other mistakes (we do not know the survivorship status) The ‘censor’ column indicates whether or not the event of interest (death) occurred within the experiment timeframe. ‘1’ indicates that death was observed, ‘0’ indicates that death was not observed, therefore that individual is censored. Variables include: **‘generation’** : F0, F1 **‘maternal_age’** : young, mid, and old - only applies to the F1 generation **‘strain’** : RUS, RUS-RE, L5, and BpL1 (different strains of *Brachionus* rotifers - see publication for more details on each strain) ‘**plate’ :** plate number ‘**well’** : well label (together with the plate number, forms the individual rotifer ID) **‘neonates.csv’ contains the number of neonates produced per individual, per day, over time.** This file has the same general format as the ‘survival.csv’ file. It also has the same ‘censor’ column. Numeric values are counts of neonates produced per day. ‘NA’ indicates that neonate production could not be observed, either because the individual had died, or was lost.  **‘rep_period.csv’ contains reproductive status of mothers over time.** This file has the same general format as the ‘survival.csv’ file. It also has the same ‘censor’ column. ‘1’ indicates that the individual was bearing eggs on that day ‘0’ indicates that the individual was not bearing eggs on that day ‘NA’ indicates that egg-bearing status could not be observed, either because the individual had died, or was lost. ## Sharing/Access information Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: * [https://github.com/aliguori19/Brachionus_intraspecific_variation](https://github.com/aliguori19/Brachionus_intraspecific_variation)