DOI: 10.5061/dryad.xgxd254q5
title: Data from: Sociality of a threatened ‘solitary’ marsupial before and after population reinforcement: associations and links to breeding success

description: Conservation translocations are becoming an increasingly necessary tool to
 reverse population declines of threatened species. However, translocations
 often disrupt the social environment for species, which could have
 consequences on the fitness of individuals released. Greater bilbies
 (Macrotis lagotis) are considered solitary and threatened, with
 conservation translocations a key part of the national recovery plan for
 the species. Here, we use social network analysis to examine whether the
 little-known associations of bilbies, before and after a population
 reinforcement of bilbies to a fenced sanctuary, are important for
 post-release breeding and could inform future translocations. Although we
 did not find any relationship between early breeding success and
 individual sociality, there were several other indications that burrows
 were a focal area for bilby associations, particularly for breeding. At
 burrows, bilbies preferred to associate with the opposite sex, males
 avoided other males, and kin avoidance when breeding opportunities were
 more limited suggests that concurrent burrow sharing was likely related to
 breeding. We found no difference in the relative breeding success between
 release groups, and, although there were some sex-specific differences,
 overall bilbies associated both within and between release groups
 non-preferentially, suggesting that bilbies released during the
 reinforcement integrated successfully. Overall, this work demonstrates the
 importance of behavioural study for the conservation of socially covert
 species and underlines the need to incorporate such information into
 conservation management.
description: Data includes the bilby movement data, results of the pairwise
 genetic relatedness for all (N = 15) greater bilbies included in this
 study, the weighted degree of each bilby (i.e. node) within each social
 network with the corresponding number offspring produced, and the total
 number of dyadic associations between every possible bilby dyad with and
 without considering similar habitat preferences. We have also provided the
 R code for generating the sociality fitness modelling and analysis as
 described in the associated paper. Necessary shapefiles for assigning
 locational fixes to habitat type are also provided.
description: # Data from: Sociality of a threatened marsupial before and after
 population reinforcement: associations and links to breeding success
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xgxd254q5](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xgxd254q5) This README file lists the supplementary datasets, shapefiles, and R code used in the associated paper. It also provides a brief description of how each file was used in generating the results, and definitions for any abbreviated variables within datasets. Note: dates are all in the format ‘date/month/year’.  ## Description of the data and file structure **Shapefiles.zip** Listed shapefiles and their auxiliary files are required for the assortativity analysis and will need to be in your working directory to run the file *Assign points to habitat type.Rmd*. Woodland_areas.shp  * Woodland_areas.shx  * Woodland_areas.qpj  * Woodland_areas.prj  * Woodland_areas.dbf  * Woodland_areas.cpg  Sanctuary_new.shp  * Sanctuary_new.shx  * Sanctuary_new.qpj  * Sanctuary_new.prj  * Sanctuary_new.dbf  * Sanctuary_new.cpg  Grassland_acacia_areas.shp  * Grassland_acacia_areas.shx  * Grassland_acacia_areas.qpj  * Grassland_acacia_areas.prj  * Grassland_acacia_areas.dbf  * Grassland_acacia_areas.cpg  Note: all shapefiles are projected to GDA94 / MGA zone 55 (EPSG:28355; [https://epsg.io/28355](https://epsg.io/28355) and units are in meters.  **Data.zip** *TrioML_Relatedness_95CIs.csv* Dyadic relatedness of all (N = 15) greater bilbies (*Macrotis lagotis*) in constructed social networks. Relatedness is estimated based on Triodic Maximum Likelihood (TrioML). Relatedness indicates the proportion of genetic material shared between two individuals with 0 = no genetic material shared, and 1 = genetically identical individuals. 1,000 bootstraps of the TrioML estimates are used to estimate the lower (TrioML LCI) and upper (TrioML UCI) 95% confidence interval for each relatedness estimate. The sex combination (Sex_pair) of the dyad is provided (F_F\_ = female-female, F_M_= female-male, M_M_= male-male, M_U_= male-unknown sex, F_U_= female-unknown sex) along with the individual identity labels (‘ID1’ and ‘ID2’). An 'Index' with a unique number for each row of data is also given.  *bilby_movement_data.csv* The movement data for all (N = 15) bilbies either at burrows or while active aboveground at night that was used to construct social networks. Along with the Latitude and Longitude of each data point there is also a unique number assigned to each data point per deployment and individual (Index), a release group category as either first = 1 or second = 2 release group (Release), an individual identity (Bilby.ID), a 'Sex' category as either male = M or female = F, if a global positioning system (GPS) was attached, a device identity is given (GPS.ID), the season of deployment as either spring = SPR, summer = SUM, winter = WIN, or autumn = AUT (Season), year of deployment (Year), and the sampling period (Sampling.Period) as either before the bilby population reinforcement event = B, two-months after the bilby reinforcement event = A, or two to four months after the bilby reinforcement event = C. While active aboveground at night, bilby movements were tracked remotely with GPS devices. For all GPS acquired locations, several extra columns of data are included: whether enough satellites were located (Status) to acquire a valid location (Valid) or not enough satellites (NotEnoughSats), number of satellites used to obtain a location (Sats Used), number of satellites that were acquired to obtain a location (Sats Acquired), the date that a location was obtained based on the internal GPS clock (RTC.date) in day/month/year format, the time a location was obtained based on the internal GPS clock (RTC.time) in hours:minutes:seconds format, frequency of GPS fixes as either hourly = L or every 5-minutes = H (FIX.type), date a location was obtained based on the fix date given by the satellite in day/month/year format (FIX.date), time a location was obtained based on the fix time given by the satellite in hours:minutes:seconds format (FIX.time), difference in seconds between the fix time given by the satellite and that given by the internal GPS clock (Delta.s.), altitude of the GPS device in meters above sea level (Altitude.m.), the Horizontal Dilution of Precision (HDOP) which indicates the quality of a GPS position (with &lt;1 indicating ideal precision and &gt;20 indicating poor precision), an error metric for GPS positions (eRes), the temperature in degrees Celsius of the GPS device (Temperature.C.), and any general comments on the data (Comments). Blank rows for FIX.date and FIX.time and "NA" for Latitude, Longitude, Altitude.m., HDOP, eRes, and Temperature.C. for attempted GPS fixes indicates that a location was unable to be obtained. While bilbies were inactive in underground burrows, their location was tracked using very-high frequency (VHF) devices as GPS devices need to be aboveground for satellite reception. For burrow fixes (i.e. non-GPS fixes), all GPS data columns are given a "NA" and GPS.ID = NA.  *Social_fitness.csv* Fitness and sociality data for all (N = 15) bilbies in constructed social networks. The individual identity (‘Bilby.ID’), sex (male = M, female = F), release group (release.gp, first release = 1, second/reinforcement release = 2), body weight at release in kilograms (release.wt), whether the network was constructed based on concurrent burrow sharing associations (fix.type = B), or active proximity at night (fix.type = GPS), whether the network was constructed before (stage = B) or after the population reinforcement event (stage = A), the total fixes used to generate the associated network (no.obs), total opportunity (in days) that an individual had to breed (total.days), number of resultant offspring produced per individual (no.offspring), and the node strength (i.e. weighted degree) of each individual within the social network (deg.wt) are provided. Any general comments are also included (comments). *Assortment_before (or after).csv (for burrow/bur and gps files)* Dyadic association strength data before (or after) population augmentation. Dyadic associations are summarised over the sampling period for each bilby dyad specified by ‘Bilby.ID1’ and ‘Bilby.ID2’. The number of observations where both bilbies were observed associating within the same defined spatial and temporal window (count.tog) and the number of times they were observed not associating within the same spatial and temporal window (count.apart) are provided. The attributes of each dyad including the sex composition (Sexpair) as M_M = male-male, F_F = female-female or M_F = male-female, release group composition (Releasepair) as 1_1 = first release-first release, 2_2 = second release-second release, or 1_2 = first release-second release, and relatedness (TrioML R) are also provided. Relatedness indicates the proportion of genetic material shared between two individuals with 0 = no genetic material shared, and 1 = genetically identical individuals. *Assortment_before (or after)_hab.csv (for burrow/bur and gps files)*  Dyadic association strength data before (or after) population augmentation. Dyadic associations are summarised over the sampling period for each bilby dyad specified by ‘Bilby.ID1’ and ‘Bilby.ID2’. The number of observations where both bilbies were observed associating within the same defined spatial and temporal window, as well as within the same habitat type (count.tog), and the number of times they were observed not associating within the same spatial and temporal window, and habitat type (count.apart) are provided. The attributes of each dyad including the sex composition (Sexpair) as M_M = male-male, F_F = female-female or M_F = male-female, release group composition (Releasepair) as 1_1 = first release-first release, 2_2 = second release-second release, or 1_2 = first release-second release, and relatedness (TrioML R) are also provided. Relatedness indicates the proportion of genetic material shared between two individuals with 0 = no genetic material shared, and 1 = genetically identical individuals. *Social_rank \_burrow (or night).csv* A relative weighted degree was calculated for each (N = 8) resident bilby before a population reinforcement of bilbies by first ranking each individual from low to highest weighted degree with individuals with the lowest weighted degree assigned a '1' and the individual with the highest weighted degree assigned an '8'. The rank was then divided by the total number of bilbies within the population (8) to get a relative weighted degree (re.deg). The same method was done for after the population reinforcement but since there was now 15 bilbies within the population the rank for each resident bilby was divided by 15 to get a relative weighted degree after the population reinforcement (rel.deg.a). For the night data, the time period after the population reinforcement was split into two, 2-month blocks of time with relative weighted degree from 0-2 months post-bilby-reinforcement (rel.deg.a.2) and 2-4 months post-bilby-reinforcement (rel.deg.a.3) calculated separately. Bilby identity (id), sex (M = male, F = female), and number of observations/locations (no.obs.a) collected after the population reinforcement for each resident bilby are also added to the dataset. For the night data, number of observations/locations are split into the two, 2 month time periods with number of observations/locations collected in 0-2 months post-bilby-reinforcement (no.obs.a.2), and 2-4 months post-bilby-reinforcement (no.obs.a.3) added separately. ## Sharing/Access information All data sourced for the associated paper were collected by the authors.  ## Code/Software **R code.zip** *bilby social network analysis.Rmd* Annotated R code to replicate all of the plots, analysis and modelling described in the associated paper. For the code to run the *Social_fitness.csv* and *bilby_movement_data.csv* (GPS/burrow fixes) files needs to be in your working directory.  *Assign points to habitat type.Rmd* Annotated R code that can be used to assign locational fixes to the corresponding habitat polygons. For the code to run the shapefiles need to be in your working directory along with the *bilby_movement_data.csv*.