DOI: 10.5061/dryad.dbrv15f1t
title: Sexual (in)equality? A meta-analysis of sex differences in thermal acclimation capacity across ectotherms

description: 1. Climate change is putting the fate of ectothermic animals at stake
 because their body temperature closely tracks environmental temperatures.
 The ability to adjust thermal limits and preference through acclimation
 (i.e., acclimation capacity) may compensate for temperature changes.
 However, although necessary for forecasting the future of ectotherms in a
 changing climate, knowledge on the factors modulating these plastic
 responses is fragmentary. For instance, the influence of an animal’s sex
 in driving acclimation capacity has been underappreciated. 2. Here, we
 present the first systematic review and meta-analysis on sex differences
 in thermal acclimation capacity. Using 239 effect sizes from 37 studies
 and 44 species, we revealed that males and females did not differ
 significantly in their overall capacity to acclimate their thermal limits
 and preference. However, in some instances, females expressed
 significantly greater plastic responses than males. 3. In wild animals,
 females had a greater heat tolerance plasticity than males. In addition,
 females had a greater cold tolerance plasticity in terrestrial habitats,
 but the strength and direction of this sexual dimorphism was associated
 with the duration of acclimation. We also found a negative correlation
 between body mass and plasticity. Finally, we demonstrated that the
 capacity for each sex to adjust their thermal tolerance and preference was
 remarkably limited. 4. It is important to acknowledge that the above
 effects were weak and heterogeneous. Hence, in the species we
 investigated, minor differences in acclimation capacity may not translate
 into major ecological mismatch between sexes with climate change. 5. Our
 systematic review also revealed that over 75% of the studies we identified
 either did not report or confounded the sex of the animals. This
 under-reporting may cause to overlook ecologically relevant sex
 differences in plasticity in ectothermic taxa. We stress the need for
 further research on sex-based responses to temperatures. 6. Our synthesis
 provides additional evidence that the capacity for ectotherms to acclimate
 to temperatures is limited, and likely insufficient to compensate for the
 impacts of climate change.
description: The methods for collecting and analysing the data are presented
 in the manuscript and supplementary methods. 
description: Here, we share the data and code from Pottier et al. (2021).
 Sexual (in)equality? A meta-analysis of sex differences in thermal
 acclimation capacity across ectotherms. Functional Ecology. 
 We recommend creating different folders to facilitate the re-use
 of the materials. First, create a folder that contains
 the "Data_and_code.Rproj" and the README file. Then, create
 three sub-folders: `data`, `output` and `R` containing the files as
 outlined below:  # `data`  This
 folder contains the different data sets used in our analyses. 
      * data_plot_fm.csv : data used to assess and plot the mean
 ARR of each sex (see Figure 3). This data is akin to
 "data_processed.csv", except that the data was converted to a
 long format.       * data_processed.csv : processed
 data used for the analyses. This data differs from
 "Raw_data.csv" by the addition of the calculated effect sizes
 and the removal of one outlier study.       *
 metadata.docx : full description of the extracted and calculated data.
 This table can also be found in Table S3 in the online version of the
 manuscript.      * Raw_data.csv : raw data without
 effect sizes. This data was used for the data exploration. 
 # `output`  This folder would host the figure
 outputs. Note that few cosmetic adjustments were made on these figures in
 Powerpoint prior to their inclusion in the manuscript. 
 # `R`  This folder contains the R file we used
 for the data exploration, processing and all analyses. Note that an
 easy-to-read html version of this code is also provided. 
      * Code.html : Code for the exploration, processing and
 analyses in a user-friendly, self-contained knitted format. We recommend
 the reader to navigate this document if interested in the code. 
      * Code.Rmd : R markdown file containing the exploration
 processing and analyses. Missing values are indicated
 as "NA" in all datasets.