DOI: 10.5061/dryad.zs7h44jhq
title: The evolutionary loss of paternal care is associated with shifts in female life history traits

description: Parental care can increase the fitness of parents through increased
 offspring survival but can also reduce reproductive output by limiting
 time and energy allocated to additional mating opportunities. The
 evolutionary origin of parental care is often associated with shifts in
 life history traits (e.g., high investment in few, large offspring, slow
 offspring growth), but little is known about whether the evolutionary loss
 of care is associated with reciprocal shifts in the same life history
 traits. Here, we capitalize on the divergence of parental care between
 ecotypes of three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) to test for
 associations between parental care and life history traits. While males
 from most stickleback populations provide care, an unusual “white” ecotype
 has recently lost paternal care. We found support for the hypothesis that
 the evolutionary loss of paternal care is associated with shifts in female
 life history traits; relative to females of the ecotype with paternal
 care, females of the white ecotype that lack paternal care produced
 clutches with a similar overall mass and a greater number of smaller eggs,
 despite their smaller body size, suggesting lower per-offspring
 investment. We did not detect an ecotypic difference in embryonic
 development rate, metabolic rate or offspring age at hatching, contrary to
 the ‘safe harbor hypothesis’. These results support the theory that
 behavioral traits such as parental care co-evolve with other life history
 traits and highlight opportunities for future study of the underlying
 causal mechanisms.
description: ### Start README --- ## Dataset “The evolutionary loss of paternal care is
 associated with reduced female parental investment ” *Authors: Colby
 Behrens (1), Sarah Young (2), Eric Arredondo (1), Anne C. Dalziel (2),
 Laura K. Weir (2), Alison M. Bell (1,3,4,5) (1) Department of Evolution,
 Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of
 Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA (2) Department of Biology,
 St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (3) Program in
 Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, University of Illinois
 Urbana?Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA\ (4) Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic
 Biology, University of Illinois Urbana?Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA (5)
 Program in Neuroscience, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Urbana,
 IL, USA * README contents: -Associated manuscript -Study summary -Software
 information -Dataset contents --- ## Associated manuscript: *Title: The
 evolutionary loss of paternal care is associated with reduced female
 parental investment * Authors: as above ## Study summary: This dataset
 contains data collected from three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus
 aculeatus) from two Nova Scotian populations, referred to as “whites” and
 “commons”. Fish were collected from the wild, bred, and reared in the
 laboratory. Adult body size, egg and clutch sizes, embryonic development
 rate, and embryonic metabolic rates were measured and reported here. See
 associated manuscript for more information. ## Software information: The
 software R is required to run the analyses performed here. R version 4.0.2
 was used in these analyses. The following R packages were loaded: dplyr,
 lme4, lmerTest, tidyr, ggplot2, gridExtra, EnvStats, cowplot. ## Data and
 File Overview: The dataset includes five data files in .csv format and a
 single R script that is used to analyze all of the data files. Individual
 files and column names are described in detail below. -File 1:
 AdultSizes.csv - This file includes data on length and weight of adult
 fish. Missing data code: NA Variables are described below: ``` *ID: Name
 of the focal fish *Population: Population of the fish (common or white)
 *Length: Standard length of the fish in mm *Weight: Weight of the fish in
 grams *Rearing: Rearing type of the individual (lab or wild) *Sex: Sex of
 the individual (M=male, F=female) ``` -File 2: EggSizes.csv - This file
 includes data on the size of the clutch, eggs from a female, as well as
 her weight before and after dropping the clutch of eggs. Each row
 represents a female, and the size of 5 eggs were measured for each female,
 split across 5 columns. Specific columns are described below: ``` *Female:
 Name of the focal fish *Preweight: Weight of the fish before dropping eggs
 (g) *Postweight: Weight of the fish after dropping eggs (g) *F_length:
 Standard length of the fish (mm) *Egg number: Number of eggs in the clutch
 *Egg 1-Egg 5: Diameter of the egg (mm) *Average: Average diameter of the
 five measured eggs from a female *Female Pop: Population of the female
 (common or white) ``` -File 3: EmbryoDevelopment.csv - This file includes
 data on embryonic development. The developmental stage of each clutch was
 recorded until all individuals had hatched. Specific columns are described
 below: ``` *Date:date of the observation (mm/dd/yyyy) *Time: time of
 observation *Clutch: Name of the clutch of eggs *Population: Population of
 the clutch *Fert_date: date of fertilization (mm/dd/yyyy) *Fert_time: time
 the clutch was fertilized *Age_days: Age of the clutch at time of
 observation (days) *Ave_stage: Average stage of the clutch at time of
 observation ``` -File 4: EmbryoHatch.csv - This file incudes data on the
 hatching times of stickleback clutches. The age at first hatching (at
 least one embryo has hatched) and the age of final hatching (all embryos
 have hatched) are given. Specific columns are described below: ```
 *Clutch: Name of the clutch *Population: population of the clutch (common
 or white) *Age_first_hatch: Age (days) when at least one embryo has
 hatched *Age_final_hatch: Age (days) when all embryos in a clutch have
 hatched. ``` -File 5: Metab.csv - This file includes data on metabolic
 rate of the embryos as measured by oxygen consumption rate. ``` *ecotype:
 type of population of the fish (common or white) *family: name of the
 clutch. These are abbreviated with the population type ("c" for
 common or "w" for white) and a number to differentiate each
 clutch. *population: specific collection location of the clutch *mo2:
 oxygen consumption rate of the egg ```