DOI: 10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtj8c
title: Individual behaviour, growth, survival and vulnerability to hunting in a large mammal

description: Humans have exploited wild animals for thousands of years. Recent studies
 indicate that harvest-induced selection on life-history and morphological
 traits may lead to ecological and evolutionary changes. Less attention has
 been given to harvest-induced selection on behavioural traits, especially
 in terrestrial systems. We assessed in a wild population of large
 terrestrial mammals whether decades of hunting led to harvest-induced
 selection on trappability, a proxy of risk-taking behaviour. We
 investigated links between trappability, horn growth and survival across
 individuals in early life and quantified the correlations between early
 life trappability and horn growth with availability to hunters and
 probability of being shot. We found positive among-individual correlations
 between early life trappability and horn growth, early life trappability
 and survival, and early life horn growth and survival. Faster growing
 individuals were more likely to be available to hunters and shot at a
 young age. We found no correlations between early life trappability and
 availability to hunters or probability of being shot. Our results show
 that correlations between behaviour and growth can occur in wild
 terrestrial population but may be context dependent. This result
 highlights the difficulty in formulating general predictions about
 harvest-induced selection on behaviour, which can be affected by species
 ecology, harvesting regulations, and harvesting methods used. Future
 studies should investigate mechanisms linking physiological, behavioural,
 and morphological traits and how this effects harvest vulnerability to
 evaluate the potential for harvest to drive selection on behaviour in wild
 animal populations.
description: # Individual behaviour, growth, survival and vulnerability to hunting in a
 large mammal This data set was collected for males of a wild bighorn sheep
 population. It contains information on rams early life behavior, growth
 and survival as well as two measures of their vulnerability to hunting
 later in life. ## Description of the data and file structure All the
 necessary data are contained in a single csv file where: * ID, is the
 individual identity of each ram. * Year, is a grouping variable regrouping
 every observations that were taken in the same year. * Cohort, is a
 grouping variable regrouping rams that were born the same year. * Age, is
 the age of rams in years when the measures was taken. * PopSize, is the
 total population size when the measure was taken. * MeanPopSize, is the
 mean population size individuals experienced from ages 1 to 4. *
 Trappability, is the annual number of captures of rams in a corral trap
 baited with salt. * HornGrowth, is the annual growth in horn length oh
 rams in centimeters (cm). * Survival, is the annual survival of rams. 1
 for rams that survived, 0 for rams that died at this age. * Legal6,
 reflects whether a ram could be legality harvested by hunters, based on a
 4/5 horn curl regulation, at or prior to 6 years of age. Rams that were
 legal to harvest at or prior to 6 years of age, were assigned a value of
 1. Rams that had not achieved a 4/5 horn curl by age 6 wetre coded as 0 as
 it was not available for hunters. Males that died before reaching 6 years
 of age while not being legal were assigned NA. * Harvested6, reflects
 whether a ram was shot by hunters at or prior to 6 years of age. Males
 that were shot at 6 years old or younger were assigned the value 1.
 Individuals that died at 6 years old or older from natural causes or were
 shot after reaching 6 years old, were given the value 0. Males that died
 of natural cause before reaching 6 years of age or were never exposed to
 hunters (when hunting stopped) were assigned NA for fate. * AgeDeath, is
 the age at death of rams. * obs, is a dummy variable uniquely identifying
 each observation. In this case it reflects the row number. ##
 Code/Software R code to visualise the data , run the analysis and generate
 figures and tables is also provided. The script is a Quarto document.