DOI: 10.5061/dryad.fbg79cp4z
title: Data from: Social and seasonal variation in dwarf mongoose home-range size, daily movements and burrow use

description: When making decisions about resource use, social species must integrate
 not only environmental factors but also the influence of opportunities and
 costs associated with group living. Bigger groups are expected to move
 further and to need access to larger areas for adequate food acquisition,
 but the relationships with group size can vary seasonally and with the
 reproductive stage. Shelters are often more consistent in availability
 than food, but their use relates to factors such as predator defense and
 parasite transmission that are themselves influenced by group size and
 seasonality. Here, we used long-term data to investigate resource use and
 associated movement in a wild population of dwarf mongooses (Helogale
 parvula). We found that bigger groups occupied larger home ranges, moved
 larger daily distances, and covered more daily areas than smaller ones,
 whilst environmental greenness (measured by normalised difference
 vegetation index [NDVI]) influenced daily movements in the breeding season
 but not the non-breeding season. Both assessed axes of seasonality also
 had pronounced effects on shelter use: mongoose groups used more unique
 sleeping burrows, and switched between burrows more often, in the breeding
 season, but also switched more when environmental greenness was higher. By
 investigating specific periods within the breeding season, we revealed the
 constraints that vulnerable, poorly mobile offspring impose on both group
 movements and burrow use, highlighting a potentially overlooked cost of
 reproduction. Our results show how both social and environmental factors
 can affect key resource-use decisions, demonstrating potential costs and
 benefits to groups living within distinctly seasonal geographic areas.
description: # Data from: Social and seasonal variation in dwarf mongoose home-range
 size, daily movements and burrow use
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fbg79cp4z](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fbg79cp4z) ## Description of the data and file structure All methods regarding data collection and processing can be found in the methods section of the manuscript: Arbon JJ, Morris-Drake A, Kern JM, Giuggioli L, Radford AN. 2024. Social and seasonal variation in dwarf mongoose home-range size, daily movements, and burrow use. Behavioural Ecology. This entry contains all the data required to replicate the analyses presented in the main text of the paper. ### Files and variables #### File: DataCodeFinal.zip **Description:**  **File: homerangeEstimates** * Data for home-range size analysis. Columns are: - Group: Unique two-letter group code * Season: Year*Season (e.g. Breeding_2021 is breeding season that spans years 2020 and 2021) - Season_type: Breeding/Non-Breeding * NDVI: NDVI value for that home-range estimate - KDE: 95% UD using KDE estimator from R package adehabitatHR * wGroupSize: Weighted group size across whole group-season - sGrp: scaled, centred weighted group size * sNDVI: scaled, centred NDVI - ndays: number of days sampled in the season for that group **File: trackMetrics** Data to analyse daily track length and area used. Columns not as above are: * Date: Date of track record - Grp_Size: Group size on that day * sGrp: Scaled group size on that day - track_length: Total track length in metres * area_used: total area used in hectares **File: trackMetricsPeriods** Data to analyse track metrics within breeding season periods. As trackMetrics file with the addition of: * Period: Three-level factor for breeding-season period type (Pre, Burrow, Emerged) **File: burrowUse** Data to analyse patterns of sleeping burrow use. Variables as in homerangeEstimates file, with the addition of: * n_burrows: number of unique burrows used in a season **File: burrowSwitches** Data to analyse burrow switching behaviour. Variables as in trackMetrics file, with the addition of: * switch: binary variable, 1 = switch, 0 - no switch **File: burrowSwitchesPeriods** Data to analyse burrow switching within breeding season periods. As burrowSwitches file with the addition of: * Period: Three-level factor for breeding-season period type (Pre, Burrow, Emerged) ## Code/software **File AnalysisCode.R** All code to replicate models run in the main text of the paper, with code for relevant figures. Code runs with supplied datasets using R version 4.4.0. Required packages: * tidyverse * lme4 * car * DHARMa * effects * ggstar * blme * emmeans * cowplot