DOI: 10.5061/dryad.zpc866tnh
title: Data and code from: Social plasticity and individuality shape variation in contest behaviour

description: Physical contests are critical in most animals in determining access to
 limited resources such as territories, food, and sexual partners.
 Individuals should base their decision to engage and escalate a contest on
 the potential returns and the probability of winning against a specific
 opponent. Although variation in competitive ability should maintain
 variation in contest behaviour within populations, there is limited
 empirical evidence demonstrating that differences in contest behaviour
 arise from differences in competitive ability at the individual level.
 Here, we used an inbred line of the highly territorial and aggressive fly
 Drosophila prolongata to test how pre-existing variation in competitive
 ability drives phenotypic variation in contest behaviour. Specifically, we
 quantified the degree to which individual differences in two key traits
 determining competitive ability, body size and weapon size, contribute to
 variation in territoriality and aggressiveness. Although territoriality
 and aggressiveness were repeatable, we found that behavioural plasticity
 in response to both focal and opponent morphological traits largely
 explains variation in both behaviours. Thus, even in the absence of
 genetic differences and under identical laboratory conditions, individuals
 consistently differ in contest behaviour while still adjusting their
 responses to the social context. We suggest that variation in the
 micro-environment, by shaping competitive ability through body size and
 weapon size, plays a crucial role in driving both between-and within
 individual variation in social behaviour.
description: Data, analysis script and associated files for: Kikodze E, Ratz T,
 (submitted) Social plasticity and individuality shape variation in contest
 behaviour Data collected by EK. Please refer to the manuscript for data
 collection methods and statistical analyses. For questions or to notify
 the authors if any errors are identified in the data, please contact Dr.
 Tom Ratz ([tom.ratz@uzh.ch](mailto:tom.ratz@uzh.ch)). Please note: in the
 .csv files, commas are used as decimal delimiters. Missing or unavailable
 data are indicated by NA. ### DATA_morphology.csv \* These data were used
 to assess the body size and the size of the foreleg segments of
 experimental males. columnHeading: description \------------- -----------
 id: Identity of the experimental male from 01 to 55 femur_length: Length
 of the foreleg femur in mm femur_width: Width of the foreleg femur in mm
 tibia_length: Length of the foreleg tibia in mm tibia_width: Width of the
 foreleg tibia in mm tarsus_length: Length of the first tarsal segment of
 the foreleg in mm thorax_length: Body size proxy measured as the length of
 the thorax in mm ### DATA_behaviour.csv \* These data were used to test
 for effects of the morphology of focal males and opponent males on two
 contest behaviours (territoriality and aggressiveness). columnHeading:
 description \------------- ----------- id: Identity of the focal male from
 01 to 55 id_opp: Identity of the opponent male from 01 to 55 id_trial:
 Behavioural assay number from 01 to 77 date: Date at which the behaviour
 assay was conducted in the format dd.mm.yy start_time: Time at which the
 behavioural assay began in the format hh:mm:ss on_food: Measure of
 territoriality defined as the number of scans (out of 30) in which the
 focal male was on the food patch attack: Measure of aggressiveness defined
 as the number of scans (out of 30) in which the focal male was attacking
 its opponent fight: Number of scans (out of 30) in which the focal male
 and its opponent were fighting resting: Number of scans (out of 30) in
 which the focal male was inactive grooming: Number of scans (out of 30) in
 which the focal male was self-grooming ###
 fly_aggression_analysis_script.rtf Annotated R script for the statistical
 analysis of "DATA_morphology.csv" and
 "DATA_behaviour.csv".