DOI: 10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0g2
title: Data from: Habitat and seasonal drivers of leukocyte profiles within and across Neotropical bat species

description: Land conversion is a dominant form of environmental change that can alter
 infection dynamics in wildlife by affecting host immune defense. Such
 effects may be compounded by seasonal variation in resources and
 reproduction and vary among members of a host community, yet the combined
 effects of habitat, season, and species identity on wildlife immunity
 remain poorly understood. We tested within- and across-species effects of
 land conversion and seasonality on immunity in Neotropical bats by
 quantifying hematological markers of physiological stress and
 inflammation. We sampled seven species across a large preserve and a
 smaller forest fragment in northern Belize during both the dry and wet
 seasons. Using phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models, we tested the
 overall effects of habitat and season and quantified per-species impacts.
 Total white blood cell counts and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratios showed
 no overall habitat or seasonal effects but displayed strong
 species-specific responses. In contrast, the systemic inflammation
 response index increased across all species in the dry season and smaller
 fragments, suggesting general poor health in unfavorable conditions.
 Species-specific effects did not align with dietary guilds, indicating
 roles for finer-scale ecological traits. Our findings highlight the
 complex, species-dependent effects of environmental change on
 wildlife's immune defense.
description: # Habitat and seasonal drivers of leukocyte profiles within and across
 Neotropical bat species Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0g2](10.5061/dryad.d51c5b0g2) ## Description of the
 data and file structure These data include hematology values from multiple
 bat species in Belize over two seasons and two sites. Alongside raw data,
 we also provide the pruned phylogeny (BZ_bat_tree) of 7 bat species and
 the R script (Becker_et_al_2025_Biology_Letters) to reproduce the primary
 analyses (phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models). ### Files and
 variables #### File: Becker_et_al._2025_BZ2122_hematology.csv
 **Description:**  ##### Variables * BZID: unique identifier for each
 individual bat * date: date of bat capture * site: site of capture in
 Belize (Lamanai Archeological Reserve vs Ka'Kabish) * fyear: factor
 year of capture (2021, 2022) * species: bat species name * label: bat
 species name matching to the Upham et al. 2019 taxonomy/phylogeny *
 family: bat taxonomic family * twbc: average number of white blood cells
 across 10 fields of view at 400X magnification * n: percent neutrophils
 derived from a differential white blood cell count * l: percent
 lymphocytes derived from a differential white blood cell count *
 m: percent monocytes derived from a differential white blood cell count *
 e: percent eosinophils derived from a differential white blood cell count
 * b: percent basophils derived from a differential white blood cell count
 * nl: ratio of neutrophils to lymphocytes (NL ratio), defined as %N / %L *
 siri: systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), defined as (%N * %M) /
 %L * ltwbc: log10-transformed total white blood cell count (adding the
 non-zero min prior to transformation) * lnl: log10-transformed NL ratio *
 lsiri: log10-transformed SIRI (adding the non-zero min prior to
 transformation) * sex: individual bat sex, coded as male (M) or female (F)
 * rep: reclassified individual bat reproductive status, coded as yes (Y)
 or no (N) * age: reclassified individual bat age, coded as
 juvenile/subadult (JSA) or adult (A) * ltime: log10-transformed holding
 time, defined as hours between capture and blood collection * rp: raw
 reproductive status, coded as yes (Y) or no (N) for males and lactating
 (L), pregnant (P), or no (N) for females * ag: raw age, coded as juvenile
 (J), subadult (SA), or adult (A) * missing: which columns were imputed (NA
 means no imputation) ## Access information Other publicly accessible
 locations of the data: * NA Data was derived from the following sources: *
 Taxonomic classifications and phylogeny follow Upham et al.
 2019: [https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000494](https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000494)  * BZ bat tree.tre was derived from the Upham et al. 2019 mammalian phylogeny using ape in R ## Version changes 9/12/2025: Added mammal phylogeny pruned to the included bat species (BZ bat tree.tre) and R script to reproduce primary analyses (Becker_et_al_2025_Biology_Letters.R)