DOI: 10.5061/dryad.j6q573nn8
title: Life history correlations and trade-offs resulting from selection for dispersal in Tribolium castaneum

description: Dispersal is an important facet of the life history of many organisms and
 is therefore subject to selective pressure, but does not evolve in
 isolation. Across nature, there are examples of dispersal syndromes, life
 history strategies in which suites of traits coevolve, and covary with
 dispersal in combinations that serve to maximise fitness in a given
 ecological context. The red rust flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, is a
 model organism and globally significant post-harvest pest that relies on
 dispersal to reach new patches of ephemeral habitat. Dispersal behaviour
 in Tribolium has a strong genetic basis. However, a robust understanding
 of the relationship between dispersal and other life-history components,
 which could elucidate evolutionary processes and allow pest managers to
 control their spread and reduce the impact of infestation, is currently
 lacking. Here we use highly replicated lines of T. castaneum previously
 artificially selected for divergent small-scale dispersal propensity, to
 robustly test several important life history components: reproductive
 strategy, development time, and longevity. As predicted, we find that a
 suite of important changes as a result of our selection on dispersal; high
 dispersal propensity is associated with a lower number of longer mating
 attempts by males, lower investment in early-life reproduction by females,
 slower development of later-laid offspring and longer female lifespan.
 These findings indicate that correlated intraspecific variation in
 dispersal and related traits may represent alternative life history
 strategies in T. castaneum. We therefore suggest that pest
 management efforts to mitigate the species’ agro-economic impact should
 consider the eco-evolutionary dynamics within multiple life histories. The
 benefits of doing so could be felt both through improved targeting of
 efforts to reduce spread, and also in forecasting how the selection
 pressures applied through pest management are likely to affect pest
 evolution.
description: # Life history correlations and trade-offs resulting from selection for
 dispersal in *Tribolium castaneum*
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j6q573nn8](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j6q573nn8) This repo contains data on four life-history traits evaluated in lines of *Tribolium* flour beetles artificially selected for either high or low dispersal propensity, and in some cases also unselected control lines. Those traits are male mating behaviour, female fecundity, egg-to-pupa development time, and longevity. ## Description of the data and file structure #### Male mating behaviour (male\_mating\_behaviour\_boris.csv) Gives the experimental line (within treatment level), selection treatment level (H=high dispersal, L=low dispersal, KSS=unselected control), replicate (within treatment; the individual video recording from which the behaviour was scored using the event logging software BORIS), experimental block, the number of 'beetle seconds' represented by each recording - the sum of the length of time each beetle was present in the assay arena, used to account for escapes), the total duration of mating observed in the replicate (in seconds), the number of matings observed in the replicate. #### Female fecundity (disp\_line\_prod\_assay.csv) Gives the experimental line, selection treatment (H=high dispersal, L=low dispersal, KSS=unselected control), replicate (ID of the individual female whose fecundity is being measured), experimental block, the number of offspring produced by the female taken for the development time assay from oviposition period 1 (relevant for only a subset of females), the number of offspring produced by the female taken for the development time assay from oviposition period 2 (relevant for only a subset of females), offspring collected that were laid in oviposition period 1, offspring collected that were laid in oviposition period 1. Note that the total offspring production of a female is the sum of the last 4 columns. NAs indicate that the relevant replicate did not exist, the most common reason for this was that the focal female had died at some prior time point. #### Egg-to-pupa development time (dev\_time\_disp\_lines.csv) Gives the experimental line, selection treatment (H=high dispersal, L=low dispersal), and replicate number (ID of the female dam). The remaining columns give the time in days since oviposition, and cells record the number of newly pupated individuals observed on that day. Empty cells are intentionally blank and indicate that no individuals died on that day. #### Longevity data (disp\_line\_tests\_longevity.csv) Gives the experimental line, selection treatment (H=high dispersal, L=low dispersal, KSS=unselected control), experimental block (1 or 2), sex (m or f), time point (in days), number of beetles alive out of a starting number of 10 per line per sex. #### Videos 10-minute video recordings (.MTS files) of test populations consisting of 10 individuals *T. castaneum* at 1:1 sex ratio. The full dataset was too large to be uploaded to this repository, but we included 40 videos as a random, representative sample of the recordings from which mating behaviour was scored. Ten-minute clips from these recordings were used to generate the male mating behaviour data provided in male_mating_behaviour_boris.csv