DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cfxpnvx6g
title: Data for Sagebrush: Consistent individual variation in plant communication: Do plants have personalities?

description: Animal biologists have recently focused on individual variation in
 behavioral traits and have found that individuals of many species have
 personalities. These are defined as consistent intraspecific differences
 in behaviors that are repeatable across different situations and stable
 over time.  When animals sense danger, some individuals will
 alert neighbors with alarm calls and both calling and responding vary
 consistently among individuals. Plants, including sagebrush, emit volatile
 cues when they are attacked by herbivores and neighbors perceive these
 cues and reduce their own damage. We experimentally transferred volatiles
 between pairs of sagebrush plants to evaluate whether individuals showed
 consistent variation in their effectiveness as emitters and as receivers
 of cues. We found that 64% of the variance in chewing damage to branches
 over the growing season was attributable to the identity of the individual
 receiving the cues. This variation could have been caused by inherent
 differences in the plants as well as by differences in the environments
 where they grew and their histories. We found that 5% of the variance in
 chewing damage was attributable to the identity of the emitter that
 provided the cue. This fraction of variation was statistically significant
 and could not be attributed to the environmental conditions of the
 receiver. Effective receivers were also relatively effective emitters,
 indicating consistency across different situations. Pairs of receivers and
 emitters that were effective communicators in 2018 were again relatively
 effective in 2019, indicating consistency over time. These results suggest
 that plants have repeatable individual personalities with respect to alarm
 calls.
description: We transferred volatiles from clipped emitter plants to branches
 of receiver plants at the start of the season. Volatiles from each emitter
 were transferred to 10 receiver individuals and 10 branches of each
 receiver were incubated for 24 hrs with volatiles from 10 emitters. At the
 end of the season, we estimated the proportion of leaves on receiver
 branches that had been attacked by chewing herbivores. This allowed us to
 estimate the proportion of the variance in levels of damage to each branch
 that were associated with the identity of the receiver plant and to the
 identify of the emitter individual. We conducted a
 second transfer experiment the following year. We transferred volatiles
 between pairs of emitters and receivers that had been effective
 communicators and pairs that had been ineffective communicators. Again we
 measured chewing damage at the end of the season to evaluate whether pairs
 that were effective in one year were also effective the following
 year.
description: The data set includes 40 receiver plants, each of which was
 incubated with volatiles from 10 emitters = 400 data points. For 9 of the
 branches, the tags were lost and the data points are missing in these
 cases. The first column indicates the identity of the receiver plant. The
 number has no significance beyond this identification. The second column
 indicates the chemotype of both the emitter and receiver. This designation
 indicates the most common volatile constituent: c is for camphor and t is
 for alpha-thujone. The third column indicates the identity of the emitter
 plant. The fourth column indicates the degree of relatedness between the
 emitter and receiver plants. Values range from -1 to 1 based on 8
 microsatellites. The fifth column indicates the number of inflorescences
 produced by each branch. The sixth column indicates the percentage of
 leaves on each branch that had chewing damage at the end of the season.
 The experimental transfers were conducted over a 5 day period and the
 seventh column indicates the day of the transfer.