Find research datasets worth reusing
Search datasets from major research repositories and use ShareScore to quickly assess how well each record supports discovery, access, and reuse.
87
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
87 results for “wild animals”
Contributions of wild and provisioned foods to the diets of domestic cats that depredate wild animals
<p>Predation of wildlife by domestic cats <i>Felis catus</i> presents a threat to biodiversity conservation in some ecological contexts. The proportions of wild prey captured and eaten by domestic cats and thus the contributions of wild prey to cat diets are hard to quantify. This limits understanding of any impacts of cats may have on wild animal populations and confounds analyses of the effects of interventions aimed at reducing wildlife killing.</p> <p>We used stable isotope analyses to quantify the relative contributions of wild and provisioned foods to the diets of domestic cats kept as companion animals and which frequently captured wild prey. We tested the effects of treatments aimed at reducing killing upon stable isotope ratios of cat whiskers and, where treatments had significant effects, we estimated variation in the contributions of wild prey to cats' diets before and during treatment. We evaluated bells, Birdsbesafe collar covers, provision of food in a 'puzzle feeder', provision of food in which meat was the principal source of protein, object play and a control group.</p> <p><span>As expected, cat diets consisted primarily of provisioned foods, though the contribution of wild animals to the diets of these cats, all of which regularly caught wild animals, was low (cat food ~96%, wild animals ~3</span>–<span>4%). Compared to the pre-treatment period and control group, cats with a Birdsbesafe collar cover, exhibited significant reduction in nitrogen stable isotope ratios in their whiskers and consumed less wild prey, most likely attributable to effective inhibition of hunting, particularly for birds. Fitting cats with a Birdsbesafe collar cover, therefore, reduced both returns of wild birds and consumption of wild prey.</span></p> <p><span>While multiple interventions can significantly affect the numbers of wild animals that cats capture and return home, the remarkably small dietary contributions made by wild animal prey mean dietary change is harder to discern. Domestic cats rely almost exclusively on food provided by people even when they frequently kill wild animals. This suggests that the hunting behavior of domestic cats may be driven by behavioral motivations, or by a need to address micronutrient requirements, but is unlikely to alter macronutrient intake.</span></p>
Impressive pan-genomic diversity of E. coli from a wild animal community near urban development reflects human impacts
<p>Data provided here support the findings of this study and code will allow the replication of analyses therein. To do so, first download and unzip the associated data files.</p> <p>For each analysis, the following files are required:</p> <p>PCAs: PCA.R, prokka_annotations.zip (and VirulenceFinder_results.csv for virulence factor PCA)</p> <p>Sankey diagram: Plasmid_AMR_Sankey.R, mlplasmids_results.zip, MOBsuite_results.zip, ResFinder_results.csv</p> <p>Pathotype assignment: VF_data_analysis.R, VirulenceFinder_results.csv</p> <p>TableS1_Ecoli_metadata.csv contains the isolate metadata (n=143) for all above analyses.</p>
Data from: Exploring deep learning techniques for wild animal behaviour classification using animal-borne accelerometers
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Contributions of wild and provisioned foods to the diets of domestic cats that depredate wild animals
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Provision of high meat content food and object play reduce predation of wild animals by domestic cats Felis catus
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Conspicuous animal signals avoid the cost of predation by being intermittent or novel: confirmation in the wild using hundreds of robotic prey
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Evaluating Bayesian stable isotope mixing models of wild animal diet and the effects of trophic discrimination factors and informative priors
<blockquote> <p>1. Ecologists quantify animal diets using direct and indirect methods, including analysis of faeces, pellets, prey items and gut contents. For stable isotope analyses of diet, Bayesian stable isotope mixing models (BSIMMs) are increasingly used to infer the relative importance of food sources to consumers. Although a powerful approach, it has been hard to test BSIMM performance for wild animals because precise, direct dietary data are difficult to collect.<br> 2. We evaluated the performance of BSIMMs in quantifying animal diets when using δ13C and δ15N stable isotope ratios from the feathers and red blood cells of common buzzard Buteo buteo chicks. We analysed mixing model outcomes with various trophic discrimination factors (TDFs), with and without informative priors, and compared these to direct observations of prey provisioned to chicks by adults at nests, using remote cameras. <br> 3. Although BSIMMs with different TDFs varied markedly in their performance, the statistical package SIDER generated TDFs for both feathers and blood that resulted in model outputs that accorded well with direct observations of prey provisioning. Using feather TDFs derived from captive peregrines Falco peregrinus resulted in estimates of diet composition that were also similar to provisioned prey, though blood TDFs from the same study performed poorly. The inclusion of informative priors, based on conventional analysis of pellet and prey remains, markedly reduced model performance.<br> 4. BSIMMs can provide accurate assessments of diet in wild animals. TDF estimates from the SIDER package performed well. The inclusion of informative priors from conventional methods in Bayesian mixing models can transfer biases into model outcomes, leading to erroneous results.</p> </blockquote>
Data from: Can interbreeding of wild and artificially propagated animals be prevented by using broodstock selected for a divergent life history?
Two strategies have been proposed to avoid negative genetic effects of artificially propagated individuals on wild populations: (i) integration of wild and captive populations to minimize domestication selection, and (ii) segregation of released individuals from the wild population to minimize interbreeding. We tested the efficacy of the strategy of segregation by divergent life history in a steelhead trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss system, where hatchery fish were selected to spawn months earlier than the indigenous wild population. Up to 80% of the naturally produced steelhead in any given year were hatchery-wild hybrids. The proportion of wild ancestry smolts and adults declined by 10 to 20% over the three generations since the beginning of the program, due to an increase in hybrids. Regression model selection analysis suggested that proportions of hybrid smolts and adults were positively correlated with the number of naturally spawning hatchery-produced adults. Furthermore, the proportion of smolt hybrids was higher in years with high stream discharge allowing hatchery fish to bypass the weir protecting wild spawning habitat. Divergent life history failed to prevent interbreeding when physical isolation was compromised following changes in environmental conditions, an inadequacy of the segregation strategy that is likely to prevail in many other situations.
Distribution. Sulawesi and adjacent Is (Buton, Kabaena, Muna, Peleng, Lembeh, and on some of the Togian Is); thought to be extinct on Selayar I. Pigs have been widely domesticated through the Indonesian archipelago and beyond. This primarily involved the Eurasian Wild Pig (S. scrofa), but also S. celebensis, the only other species of pig successfully domesticated. Mitochondrial DNA studies of the dispersion of these domesticated forms agree on three major dispersal events, two involving S. scrofa and one S. celebensis. Evidence supports an early human-mediated translocation of S. celebensis to Flores and Timor and two later, separate human-mediated dispersals of domestic pig through islands of SE Asia into Oceania. In addition to Flores and Timor, S. celebensis is also thought to occur in its domesticated form on Halmahera, Lendu, Roti, and Savur Is, and even on Simeulue and Nias Is to the W of Sumatra and far from its island of origin, Sulawesi. In the Moluccas, and possibly elsewhere in this region, introduced S. celebensis are thought to have hybridized with other introduced pigs of S. scrofa derivation, and apparent hybrids between these species are now reported to survive on a number of islands, including Salawatti, Great Kei, Dobu, Seram, Ambon, Bacan, Ternate, Morotai, and New Guinea. It is also reported that in the 19" century the sows of domestic pigs in Sulawesi frequently mated with wild animals, after which they returned to their villages. in Suidae
Distribution. Sulawesi and adjacent Is (Buton, Kabaena, Muna, Peleng, Lembeh, and on some of the Togian Is); thought to be extinct on Selayar I. Pigs have been widely domesticated through the Indonesian archipelago and beyond. This primarily involved the Eurasian Wild Pig (S. scrofa), but also S. celebensis, the only other species of pig successfully domesticated. Mitochondrial DNA studies of the dispersion of these domesticated forms agree on three major dispersal events, two involving S. scrofa and one S. celebensis. Evidence supports an early human-mediated translocation of S. celebensis to Flores and Timor and two later, separate human-mediated dispersals of domestic pig through islands of SE Asia into Oceania. In addition to Flores and Timor, S. celebensis is also thought to occur in its domesticated form on Halmahera, Lendu, Roti, and Savur Is, and even on Simeulue and Nias Is to the W of Sumatra and far from its island of origin, Sulawesi. In the Moluccas, and possibly elsewhere in this region, introduced S. celebensis are thought to have hybridized with other introduced pigs of S. scrofa derivation, and apparent hybrids between these species are now reported to survive on a number of islands, including Salawatti, Great Kei, Dobu, Seram, Ambon, Bacan, Ternate, Morotai, and New Guinea. It is also reported that in the 19" century the sows of domestic pigs in Sulawesi frequently mated with wild animals, after which they returned to their villages.
Methodological confounds of measuring urinary oxidative stress in wild animals
<p>Biomarkers of oxidative stress (OS) are useful in addressing a wide range of research questions, but thus far, they have had limited application to wild mammal populations due to a reliance on blood or tissue sampling. A shift towards non-invasive measurement of OS would allow field ecologists and conservationists to apply this method more readily. However, the impact of methodological confounds on urinary OS measurement under field conditions has never been explicitly investigated. We combined a cross-sectional analysis with a field experiment to assess the impact of four potential methodological confounds on OS measurements: 1) time of sampling, 2) environmental contamination from foliage; 3) delay between sample collection and flash-freezing in liquid nitrogen; 4) sample storage of up to 15 months below -80C. We measured DNA oxidative damage (8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine, 8-OHdG), lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde, MDA), Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) and uric acid (UA) in 167 urine samples collected from wild Zanzibar red colobus (Piliocolobus kirkii). We found that MDA was higher in samples collected in the morning than in the afternoon but there were no diurnal patterns in any of the other markers. Contamination of samples from leaf surfaces and time frozen at -80°C for up to 15 months did not affect OS marker concentrations. Freezing delay did not affect OS levels cross-sectionally, but OS values from individual samples showed only moderate to good consistency and substantial rank order reversals when exposed to different freezing delays. We recommend that the impact of storage time on OS marker concentrations and diurnal patterns of OS markers be considered when designing sampling protocols. However, given the high stability we observed for four OS markers subject to a variety of putative methodological confounds, we suggest that urinary OS markers provide a valuable addition to the toolkit of field ecologists and conservationists within reasonable methodological constraints.</p>
Supplementary File 9; Table of total frequencies and mean frequencies for various sightings, tracks, spoor and other signs of wild animals per camp radial survey and per transect survey segment:
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Supplementary File 8; Dot plots summarising the total frequencies of direct observations, tracks, spoor, and other signs of all wild animals detected in radial and transect surveys over the course of the study:
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Survival and reproductive costs of repeated acute glucocorticoid elevations in a captive, wild animal
Organisms are continuously encountering both predictable and unpredictable ecological stressors within their environment. The activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (stress) axis is a fundamental process allowing animals to cope with and respond to such encounters. A main consequence of HPA axis activation is the release of glucocorticoid hormones. Although short-term glucocorticoid elevations lead to changes in physiological and behavioral processes that are often adaptive, our understanding of fitness consequences of repeated acute elevations in glucocorticoid hormones over a longer time period is largely lacking. This is of particular current importance as animals are facing a significant increase in exposure to stressors including those associated with human-induced rapid environmental change. Here, we test fitness-relevant consequences of repeated exposure to glucocorticoids in the absence of natural challenges, by treating wild-caught gravid female eastern fence lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) with a daily transdermal dose of a glucocorticoid hormone until laying. This treatment causes an increase in plasma glucocorticoids that mimics the natural response lizards have when they encounter a stressor in the wild, without confounding effects associated with the encounter itself. This treatment reduced females' reproductive success (hatching success) and survival. Further, glucocorticoid-induced reductions in reproductive success were greater when females had experienced higher temperatures the previous winter. This demonstrates the potential significant consequences of repeated exposure to acute elevations in glucocorticoid hormones. Additionally, the costs of repeated glucocorticoid elevation may be further exaggerated by an individual's previous experience, such as the potential compounding effects of winter warming increasing animals' vulnerability to increased glucocorticoid levels during spring breeding.
Data from: Unexpected positive and negative effects of continuing inbreeding in one of the world's most inbred wild animals
Inbreeding depression, the reduced fitness of offspring of related individuals, is a central theme in evolutionary biology. Inbreeding effects are influenced by the genetic makeup of a population, which is driven by any history of genetic bottlenecks and genetic drift. The Chatham Island black robin represents a case of extreme inbreeding following two severe population bottlenecks. We tested whether inbreeding measured by a 20-year pedigree predicted variation in fitness among individuals, despite the high mean level of inbreeding and low genetic diversity in this species. We found that paternal and maternal inbreeding reduced fledgling survival and individual inbreeding reduced juvenile survival, indicating that inbreeding depression affects even this highly inbred population. Close inbreeding also reduced survival for fledglings with less-inbred mothers, but unexpectedly improved survival for fledglings with highly inbred mothers. This counterintuitive interaction could not be explained by various potentially confounding variables. We propose a genetic mechanism, whereby a highly inbred chick with a highly inbred parent inherits a "proven" genotype and thus experiences a fitness advantage, which could explain the interaction. The positive and negative effects we found emphasize that continuing inbreeding can have important effects on individual fitness, even in populations that are already highly inbred.
Supplementary material 2 from: D'Cruze N, Assou D, Coulthard E, Norrey J, Megson D, Macdonald DW, Harrington LA, Ronfot D, Segniagbeto GH, Auliya M (2020) Snake oil and pangolin scales: insights into wild animal use at "Marché des Fétiches" traditional medicine market, Togo. Nature Conservation 39: 45-71. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.39.47879
Table S1. List of inferred species and their respective scientific names (assigned to each common name provided by questionnaire respondents) based on the documented presence of wild populations in Togo
Data from: From the animal house to the field: are there consistent individual differences in immunological profile in wild populations of field voles (Microtus agrestis)?
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Can interbreeding of wild and artificially propagated animals be prevented by using broodstock selected for a divergent life history?
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Diet and phylogeny shape the gut microbiota of Antarctic seals: a comparison of wild and captive animals
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Harvest selection on multiple traits in the wild revealed by aquatic animal telemetry
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Evaluating Bayesian stable isotope mixing models of wild animal diet and the effects of trophic discrimination factors and informative priors
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
ScienceDex guides
Understand access before you commit
These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.