DOI: 10.5061/dryad.vx0k6dk1r
title: Data from: Can recent social evolutionary history promote resilience to environmental change?

description: Principles of social evolution have long been used retrospectively to
 interpret social interactions, but have less commonly been applied
 predictively to inform conservation and animal husbandry strategies. We
 investigate whether differences in developmental environment, facilitated
 by divergent social conditions, can predict resilience to environmental
 change. Upon exposure to harsh novel environments, populations that
 previously experienced more benign social environments are predicted
 either to suffer fitness losses (the “mutation load hypothesis” and
 “selection filter hypothesis”) or maintain fitness (the “beneficial
 mutation hypothesis”). We tested these contrasting predictions using
 populations of burying beetles Nicrophorus vespilloides we had evolved
 experimentally for 45 generations under contrasting social environments by
 manipulating the supply of post-hatching parental care. We exposed
 sexually immature adults from each population to varying heat stress and
 measured the effect on survival and reproduction. The greater the level of
 parental care previously experienced by a population, the better its
 survival under heat stress during sexual maturation. Although this is
 consistent with the “beneficial mutation hypothesis”, it is also possible
 that populations that had evolved without post-hatching care were simply
 more prone to dying during maturation, regardless of their thermal
 environment. Overall, we suggest that stochastic genetic variation,
 probably due to founder effects, had a stronger influence on resilience.
 We discuss the implications for translocation and captive breeding
 programmes.
description: ## Can recent evolutionary history promote resilience to environmental
 change? Comments and requests should be addressed to Eleanor
 Bladon: [ekr23@cam.ac.uk](mailto:ekr23@cam.ac.uk) or
 [eleanor.bladon@gmail.com](mailto:eleanor.bladon@gmail.com) ###
 Description of the data and file structure Details of data collection
 methods for each of the datasets can be found in the manuscript listed
 above. ##### "Bladon et al 2024 - Thermal survival data" and
 "Bladon et al 2024 - Thermal breeding data" contain the
 following columns: *ID - The unique identifier given to each breeding pair
 of beetles *Block - Experimental block 1 or 2 *Treatment - FCinFC = the
 adults (the focal individuals in the survival dataset and the parents in
 the breeding dataset) were from an experimental evolution Full Care
 population and received full parental care themselves; FCinNC = the
 parents were from an experimental evolution Full Care population but
 received no post-hatching parental care themselves; NCinNC = the parents
 were from an experimental evolution No Care population and received no
 post-hatching parental care themselves; NCinFC = the parents were from an
 experimental evolution No Care population but received full parental care
 themselves *EvoPop - The experimental evolution population of the adult
 (the focal individual in the survival dataset and the parents in the
 breeding dataset) *EvoCare - The experimental evolution treatment of the
 population from which the adult was derived (FC = Full Care; NC = No Care)
 *JuvCare - The parental care treatment that the adult actually received
 when they were a larva (FC = Full Care; NC = No Care) *Temp - The
 temperature in degrees Celsius that the adult was kept at between eclosion
 and sexual maturity *Box - The ID given to the parental pairings within
 each temperature and care treatment ##### The "Bladon et al 2024 -
 Thermal survival data" file also contains the following columns: *Sex
 - The sex of the focal beetle *Survival - Whether the focal beetle was
 alive or dead at sexual maturity (immediately following their temperature
 treatment at 14 days after eclosion) *Status - Survival converted into a
 binary metric (0 = dead; 1 = alive) ##### The "Bladon et al 2024 -
 Thermal breeding data" file also contains the following columns:
 *CarcassMass - The mass in grams of the mouse carcass given to parents
 when they were paired *EggNo - The number of eggs counted from the
 underside of the breeding box at 53 h after parental pairing *Eggs -
 Whether any eggs were laid (0 = no eggs; 1 = at least one egg) *LarvaeNo -
 The number of larvae that hatched *Larvae - Whether any larvae hatched (0
 = no larvae; 1 = at least one larva) *Sphericity - How spherical the
 carcass nest was at 53 h (see manuscript for methods and code to calculate
 sphericity). Note, this was only calculated for a subset of pairs.
 *Prop_450_male - The proportion of Micrococcus lysodeikticus cells not
 degraded by the male's exudate in 1 h (450 nm reading at 60
 minutes/450 nm reading at 0 minutes on a BioTek ELx808 microplate reader).
 Note, this was only measured for a subset of beetles. *Prop_450_female -
 The proportion of Micrococcus lysodeikticus cells not degraded by the
 female's exudate in 1 h (450 nm reading at 60 minutes/450 nm reading
 at 0 minutes on a BioTek ELx808 microplate reader). Note, this was only
 measured for a subset of beetles. Missing data code: NA