DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2jm63xszw
title: Data from: Odour information enables patch choice by mammalian herbivores from afar, leading to predictable plant associational effects

description: Neighbouring plants can alter the susceptibility of high-quality focal
 plants to herbivores by affecting herbivore patch choice. Herbivores can
 use plant odour to make patch-scale foraging decisions from afar, but the
 actual information they rely on within complex plant odours is rarely
 defined. Revealing the information enabling patch choice by herbivores
 will provide the mechanistic link underpinning associational effects of
 plant neighbours arising from these foraging decisions. Here, our first
 aim was to test whether odour cues alone enable a mammalian herbivore to
 make patch choice decisions leading to predictable associational effects
 of neighbours on high-quality focal plants. Our second aim was then to
 test whether artificial odour, designed to mimic the informative odour
 component within the whole odour profile of low-quality neighbours, is as
 effective as real plants in influencing patch choice and associational
 refuge. We tested patch choice by African
 elephants, Loxodonta africana using a giant Y-maze and real or
 artificial plant odours as the only cues for the neighbours of a
 high-quality focal plant. We quantified the probability of various odour
 treatments being chosen in comparison with the odour of a focal plant
 alone. Compared with focal plants alone, we found that elephants
 were more likely to choose patches with the focal plant plus high-quality
 neighbours of the same or different species, but less likely to choose
 patches with the focal plant plus low-quality neighbours. We also
 demonstrated that an artificial subset of odours, designed to be
 informative, were as effective as real low-quality neighbours in
 influencing patch choice and hence associational refuge to the focal
 plant. Our results demonstrate a key role of plant odour – and
 specifically informative components within complex odour profiles – in
 patch choice decisions by a mammalian herbivore, leading to plant
 associational effects on high-quality focal plants. Understanding what
 olfactory information herbivores use when deciding which patches to visit
 or avoid, and how it affects focal plant susceptibility is important
 ecologically. Non-random patch choice will not only affect individual
 fitness of herbivores, but also shape plant community dynamics through
 impacting plant survival and recruitment. Furthermore, artificially
 re-creating odour information could offer a new tool to influence
 herbivore foraging decisions, with implications for wildlife management
 and conservation, including plant protection.
description: # Odour information enables patch choice by mammalian herbivores from
 afar, leading to predictable plant associational effects
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2jm63xszw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2jm63xszw) ## Description of the data and file structure This data was collected though running a number of African elephant 'walk throughs' of a giant Y-maze where each elephant (n = 6) was offered a binary choice of one plant patch, or another. Complete methods and replication can be found in the paper. ### Files and variables #### ALL FILES: **Description:**  ##### Variables * ORDER: To re-order the spreadsheet * DATE: Date that the walk through occured * DAY: How many days into the trial * TIME: Whether the walk through was conducted in the morning (AM), or afternoon (PM) * TREATMENT: Treatment ID - written out clearly * SETNO: Seperating out each walk through 'set' where each of the 6 elephants were trialled (i.e., Day 1, AM = set 1, Day 1, PM = set 2, etc.) * PERIOD: Period within a day (i.e., Day 1, AM = Period 1, Day 1, PM = Period 2, Day 2, AM = Period 1, Day 2, PM = Preiod 2, etc.) * WTNUMBERWITHINPERIOD: 'Walk through number within period', the number of walk throughs within a given period per individual elephant * TESTNO: The test number for each given treatment per individual elephant * ELEPHANT: The name of the elephant * AGE: The age of the elephant * SEX: The sex of the elephant * PATCH: What was in each patch (note, the spreadsheet is broken down into 2 row sections per walk through, showing what was presented to the elephant in one patch, and on the other to show what they selected, or not. * FOCUS: A 'focus' line for filtering for statistical analysis * POSITION: What side (left or right) the 'focus' patch was on * CHOSEN: Whether the focus patch was selected for not (NA = neither option choosen, elephant did not walk through the Y-maze) * FOCAL PLANT EATEN: Whether the focal plant within the focus patch was eaten (NA = patch not selected, as such, focal plant can not be eaten) * % FOCAL PLANT EATEN: How much (%) of the focal plant was eaten (NA = patch not selected, as such, focal plant can not be eaten) * NEIGHBOUR EATEN: Whether the neighbouring plant material within the focus patch was eaten (NA = patch not selected, as such, neighbour plant can not be eaten) * % NEIGHBOUR EATEN: How much (%) of the neighbouring plant material within the focus patch was eaten (NA = patch not selected, as such, neighbour plant can not be eaten) * COMMENT: Comments on the walk through ## Code/software Data can be viewed in excel.