Data for: Environment-dependent relationships between corticosterone and energy expenditure during reproduction: insights from seabirds in the context of climate change

<p>We studied the relationship between baseline levels of the steroid hormone corticosterone and daily energy expenditure (DEE) in the little auk (<em>Alle alle</em>), an Arctic sea bird that is experiencing mounting energetic challenges due to climate change. We specifically investigated the hypothesis that there might be environment-dependent relationships between baseline corticosterone, DEE, time activity budgets, diving behavior and fitness-related traits (chick provisioning rate, adult body condition). Furthermore, we also examined whether mercury (Hg) contamination might interfere with corticosterone production, and hence potentially the capacity to upregulate DEE.&nbsp; In addition, we performed a phylogenetically controlled analysis across breeding seabird species to assess the relationship between baseline corticosterone and DEE, which we estimated via <span>a model derived from a phylogenetically controlled meta-analysis, </span><span>available within a <span>web-based app (&lsquo;Seabird FMR Calculator&rsquo;, </span></span><span><a href="https://ruthedunn.shinyapps.io/seabird_fmr_calculator/"><span>https://ruthedunn.shinyapps.io/seabird_fmr_calculator/</span></a></span><span>) (Dunn et al. 2018).&nbsp; These datasets contain information on corticosterone levels, DEE, TABs and Hg in little auks, and the data used in our phylogenetically controlled analysis. Please see the READ me file for details.</span></p>