DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17777739
title: Sexual dimorphism in pollen foraging and sensory traits in Heliconius butterflies

description: Data and analysis scripts for Borrero et al.: Sexual dimorphism in pollen foraging and sensory traits in Heliconius butterflies

# Reference Information

## Provenance for this README

- File name: README_himera_sensory_ecology.md  - Authors: José Borrero  - Other contributors: David F. Rivas-Sánchez, , Daniel Shane Wright, Stephen H. Montgomery, Alexander Keller,  Richard M. Merrill  - Date created: 2025-12-01  - Date modified: 2025-12-01  

## Dataset Version and Release History

- **Current Version**  - Number: 1.0.0    - Date: 2025-12-01    - Persistent identifier: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17777739    - Summary of changes: Initial public release of *H. himera* sensory ecology and brain dimorphism datasets; includes brain morphology, eye morphology, reflectance-age calibration, pollen metabarcoding, and microhabitat recapture datasets.

- **Previous Versions**  - None (this is the first release)

- Embargo Provenance: n/a    - Scope of embargo: n/a    - Embargo period: n/a  

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# Sexual dimorphism in pollen foraging and sensory traits in Heliconius butterflies### Data & Analysis Repository

This repository contains datasets and analysis scripts used across multiple components of the *Heliconius himera* sensory ecology project, including brain morphology, eye morphology, wing reflectance, pollen metabarcoding, and recapture microhabitat analyses.  Files are grouped below by theme and briefly described.

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# Data and File Overview

## 1. Brain Morphology & Sexual Dimorphism

### **Data**- **Cyr_him_combined_brain_volumes.csv**    Combined neuropil volume dataset for *H. cydno* and *H. himera* with log-transformed measurements and metadata.

- **Hhimera_eyemorph.csv**    Eye morphology dataset (ommatidia counts, eye area) for *H. himera*.

- **TableS1_Hhim-brain-dimorphism.xlsx**    Curated neuropil volume summary table for sexual dimorphism analysis.

- **himera_lrt_table.csv**    Likelihood-ratio test results for neuropil linear mixed models.    - **smatr_table_himera.csv**    Table containing slope, intercept, and elevation shift outputs from SMATR.

### **Scripts**- **Brains_sex_him.r**    Main statistical pipeline for modelling sexual dimorphism in brain structure. 

- **smatr_eyes_himera.R**    SMATR major axis analysis of eye scaling relationships.

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## 2. Reflectance Spectrometry & Age Prediction

### **Data**- **reflectance_age.csv**    Area-under-curve reflectance measures used to train age prediction models.

- **Vilcabamba_samples_age.csv**    Known-age dataset for wild *H. himera* from Vilcabamba used to validate reflectance–age mapping.

### **Scripts**- **reflectance_age_modeling_full.R**    End-to-end reflectance-based age modelling script (model fitting, validation, diagnostics).

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## 3. Pollen Metabarcoding & Foraging Ecology

### **Data**- **asv_vilcabamba_table.merge.txt**    Merged ITS2 amplicon sequence variant (ASV) table from proboscis and gut samples.

- **samples_metadata_vilcabamba.csv**    Metadata for sequenced samples (sex, body part, date, barcode, etc.).

### **Scripts**

- **metabarcoding_tools_0-1a.R**    Helper functions for data cleaning, ASV processing, and taxonomic lookup.- **R_ITS2_vilcabamba.R**    ITS2 metabarcoding pipeline including filtering, taxonomic assignment, and diversity analyses.

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## 4. Microhabitat & Recapture Data

### **Data**- **recaptures_logger_1h.csv**    Temperature and relative humidity recorded approximately one hour after recapture events.

- **Vilcambamba_recapture_data.csv**    Spatial and environmental capture–recapture dataset (coordinates, canopy cover, flight height, temperature, humidity).    ### **Scripts**

- **Pollen_loads.R**    Quantification of pollen loads, taxonomic richness, and Shannon diversity.

# Reproducibility Notes

- Analyses were performed using **R v4.2–4.4**.  - Required packages include:    `tidyverse`, `lme4`, `smatr`, `vegan`, `phyloseq`, `ggplot2`,    and others listed within individual scripts.  - Scripts are modular and will run when corresponding datasets are placed in the working environment.  - Raw sequencing FASTQ files are **not** included in this dataset release.  - All coordinate data have been processed to remove sensitive location information where needed.

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# Dataset Metadata

## Dataset Title**Sexual dimorphism in pollen foraging and sensory traits in Heliconius butterflies**  *(Formal publication title will be updated upon manuscript acceptance.)*

## Persistent IdentifierTo be assigned (10.5281/zenodo.17777739).

## Dataset Contributors

- José Borrero (Creator)- David F. Rivas-Sánchez- Daniel Shane Wright  - Stephen H. Montgomery  - Alexander Keller- Richard M. Merrill  

## Date of Issue2025-12-01

## PublisherTo be updated depending on repository (Dryad, Zenodo, institutional repository).

## License- **CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)**  - Specification: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/  - The authors respectfully request to be contacted by researchers interested in re-use of these data to discuss potential collaboration.

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# Contact Information

### Primary Contact- **Name:** José Borrero  - **Affiliation:** Department of Evolutionary Biology, LMU Munich  - **ORCID:** https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0164-496X  - **Email:** jose.borrero@lmu.de   

### Alternate Contact (PI)- **Name:** Richard M. Merrill  - **Affiliation:** Department of Evolutionary Biology, LMU Munich  - **ORCID:** https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4527-9298  - **Email:** merrill@bio.lmu.de  - **Address:** LMU Biozentrum Martinsried, Großhaderner Straße 2, 82152 Martinsried, Germany

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# Additional Information

## FundingThis research was funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Starter Grant (851040) to R.M.M.    ## Dates and Locations of Data Collection- Field data were collected from 2023.  - Geographic location: Vilcabamba, Ecuador (Andean dry forest habitat).  - Laboratory analyses were performed at LMU Munich.

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# Setup

- Recommended software: RStudio (2023 or later), R v4.2–4.4  - Scripts are written in base R and tidyverse conventions.  

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# Table of Contents

- README.md  - Brains_sex_him.r  - smatr_eyes_himera.R  - reflectance_age_modeling_full.R  - R_ITS2_vilcabamba.R  - metabarcoding_tools_0-1a.R  - Pollen_loads.R  - All associated datasets (.csv, .txt, .xlsx)

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**END OF README**