DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0cfxpnw9v
title: Data from: On the importance of scale in evolutionary quantitative genetics

description: The informed use of scales and units in evolutionary quantitative genetics
 is often neglected, and naïve standardizations can cause
 misinterpretations of empirical results. A potentially influential example
 of such neglect can be found in the recent book by Stevan J. Arnold (2023.
 Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics Oxford University Press). There, Arnold
 championed the use of heritability over mean-scaled genetic variance as a
 measure of evolutionary potential arguing that mean-scaled genetic
 variances are correlated with trait means while heritabilities are not.
 Here, we show that Arnold's empirical result is an artifact of
 ignoring the units in which traits are measured. More importantly,
 Arnold’s argument mistakenly assumes that the goal of mean scaling is to
 remove the relationship between mean and variance. In our view, mean
 scaling is useful because it puts traits with different units on a common
 scale that makes evolutionary changes, or their potential, readily
 interpretable and comparable in terms of proportions of the mean.
description: Data are part of two previously published studies, Houle 1992
 Genetics and Holstad et al. 2024 Science. Details about the methods to
 collect the data can be found in the original papers. 
description: # On the importance of scale in evolutionary quantitative genetics These
 are the data underlying figures 1 and 2 in the article: Hansen, T. F.,
 Holstad, A., Houle, D. and Pélabon, C. (2024) On the importance of scale
 in evolutionary quantitative genetics. Evolution Data for Figure 1 ####
 Relationship between coefficient of additive genetic variation, CVA, and
 trait mean for 540 morphological traits from the Houle (1992) data. ####
 Contact information on data curator: * Name: Christophe Pelabon / David
 Houle * Affiliation: Department of Biology, Norwegian University of
 Science and Technology; Trondheim, Norway * ORCID ID:
 [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8630-8983](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8630-8983) * Email: [christophe.pelabon@ntnu.no](mailto:christophe.pelabon@ntnu.no) File name: Hansen_et_al_fig_1 This file corresponds to the data originally compiled in Houle 1992 and used by Arnold 2023 in the figure 5.8. Here, we have homogenised the units so that all length measurements are expressed in mm and mass measurements in g. Missing data code: NA Definition of the column in the file: **Hansen_et_al_Fig_1.txt** * Author: reference as given in Houle 1992 * Study: ID number for the study * Ref: Reference number in Houle 1992 database * Mean: Trait mean * Phenotype: Trait name as reported in the study * Unit: Unit used in the original study * new_unit: New homogenized unit: g for mass; mm for length. * Vp: Phenotypic variance in the original unit * CVp: Coefficient of phenotypic variation * h2: Heritability * trait_cat: morphological, growth; life history. * trait_cat2: More detailed category: R = reproductive age, F = fecundity, C = clutch size, S = size, L = longevity, O = other morphological * organism: I = insect, C = cold-blooded vert., H = homeotherm vert., P = plant, O = other. * Sex: female/male * dim.: trait dimension * Species: Latin species name * Va: Additive genetic variance in original unit * Ia: Evolvability in original unit * CVa: Coefficient of additive genetic variation * mean2: Mean using the homogenized unit * Vp2: Phenotypic variance using homogenised unit * Va2: Additive genetic variance using homogenised unit Data for Figure 2 # Evolvability and trait mean relationship for length measures #### Contact information on data curator: * Name: Agnes Holstad * Affiliation: Department of Biology, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Trondheim, Norway * ORCID ID: [https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3154-1857](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3154-1857) * Email: [agnes.holstad@ntnu.no](mailto:agnes.holstad@ntnu.no) * Alternate Email: [agnes.holstad@gmail.com](mailto:agnes.holstad@gmail.com) ## Details on this README file * File format: .md * Author: Agnes Holstad * Date created: 05.06.2024 ## Description of the data and file structure The data underlying Figure 2 is from the data used in the following paper: Holstad, A., Voje, K. L., Opedal, Ø. H., Bolstad, G. H., Bourg, S., Hansen, T. F. and Pélabon, C. (2024). Evolvability predicts macroevolution under fluctuating selection. Science 384(6696): 688-693. Length measures in the contemporary data was taken and all trait mean measures were converted into millimetres (mm). The file "length_measures_fig.2.txt" is therefore a subset of all the data given in the above mentioned article. #### Details for: Hansen\_et\_al\_Fig\_2.txt * Contributors: Øystein Opedal and Agnes Holstad * Format: .txt, tab delimited * Size: 223 KB * Dimensions: 478 rows x 48 columns * Missing data codes: NA * Variables: * studyID: Unique identifier for all traits from the same study * trait: Trait name as it is given in original study * trait_UUID: Universal Unique identifier for traits measured with the same method by the same group. * trait.type: The type of trait, e.g., morphological, physiological life history * measure: The measurement as described in the original study * unit: Units the trait mean has after conversion (may have been given in other unit in original study). All should be "mm". * dimension: Trait dimension or type of scale. E.g. linear, area, mass/volume, count, growth rate, ratio. All should be linear * transformation.G: If the trait values are transformed prior to estimation of Va (additive genetic variance). E.g. log_base, sqrt, Z, mean_centering, mean_std * transformation.P: If the trait values are transformed prior to estimation of Vp (phenotypic variance). E.g. log_base, sqrt, Z, mean_centering, mean_std * n.fam: Number of families in the genetic analysis * n.genetic: Number of individuals in the genetic analysis * n.pheno: Sample size for the phenotypic data * h2: Heritability * se.h2: standard error of h2 * trait.mean: Phenotypic trait mean * se: Standard error of trait mean * vp: Phenotypic variance * se.vp: Standard error of phenotypic variance * sd: Standard deviation * va: Genetic variance * se.va: Standard error of genetic variance * estim_method: Estimation method of genetic variance, REML/ML/LS/potsmean/postmode * ve: Environmental variance * se.ve: Standrad error of environmental variance * cva: Genetic coefficient of variance * se.cva: Standard error of cva * evol: Evolvability, mean standardised or proportional genetic variance * se.evol: Standard error of evolvability * x100: If cva and evolvability is multiplied by 100, Y/N * only_sp: If the data is only for species (Y/N/B) (only species data/only population data/both) * environment.g: The environment where the measures for the genetic estimates are taken, e.g., field or common_garden * environment.p: The environment where the measures for the phenotypic estimates are taken, e.g., field or common_garden * kingdom * phylum * taxon * order * family * genus * species: Written as Genus_species * population: Name of the population * sex: Female/Male/both * reference: FirstAuthor_year * journal * vol * year: In format YYYY * DOI * notes * e: evolvability given in percent, i.e., x100.