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.
600
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
600 results for “sex-specific”
Data and scripts for: Satellite-tracking reveals sex-specific migration distance in green turtles (Chelonia mydas)
<p>Data derivates and analysis scripts (in R) used for the paper "Satellite-tracking reveals sex-specific migration distance in green turtles (<em>Chelonia mydas</em>)", published in Biology Letters, on analyzing male and female green turtle movements in West Africa.</p>
Sex-specific shifts in morphology and diet in a frog after 50 years of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation
<p><span>Aim:</span><span> Phenotypic shifts are commonly observed when animals face insular habitat change and may reflect ongoing stresses on individuals. However, the generality and the driving processes of this 'island rule' remain equivocal, notably in amphibians. Here, we</span> <span>investigate both morphological and dietary shifts in a frog using a mosaic of human-created islands to assess the potential operating mechanisms underlying these phenotypic responses</span>.</p> <p><span>Location: </span><span>Thousand Island Lake, China.</span></p> <p><span>Taxon: </span><span>The Chinese piebald odorous frog, Odorrana schmackeri.</span></p> <p><span>Results:</span><span> W</span>e found insular dwarfism in female<span> but not male</span> frogs.<span> Meanwhile, insular females also had smaller gape widths after accounting for snout-vent lengths (SVLs) than mainland females. According to SEMs</span>, resource availability <span>had a direct positive effect on </span>body size. <span>Finally, d</span>iet composition <span>differed</span> between island and mainland<span> populations, but only in females. Males and females on islands</span> exhibited <span>greater</span> <span>overlaps in </span>diet.</p> <p><span>Main conclusions:</span><span> In contrast with most studies in amphibians</span><span>, we found insular dwarfism rather than gigantism in females. The smaller gape width after accounting for SVL in insular females suggests potential changes in prey utilization or food availability on these human-created islands. This notion is </span><span>further </span><span>supported</span><span> by the differentiation of diet composition between island and mainland females. The higher diet overlap between sexes implies stronger intersexual competition for food resources after habitat fragmentation. Overall, we found shifts in morphology and diet in frogs which may implicate the influence of habitat fragmentation and underscores the need to consider intersexual differences when assessing responses of species to anthropogenic disturbances.</span></p>
Data: Sex-specific effects of capital resources on reproductive timing and success in red squirrels
<p><span>Reproduction is an energetically expensive activity for both sexes. However, if males and females differ in their annual timing of reproduction, such that peak investment for one sex occurs during a more resource-limited period, there is an opportunity for sex-specific selection to act on the acquisition of energetic resources. Both male and female North American red squirrels (<em>Tamiasciurus hudsonicus</em>) cache conifer cones, although males typically have larger caches than females. Peak energetic investment in reproduction occurs for males during the mating season in winter and early spring (when squirrels rely almost exclusively on cached resources) and for females during lactation (which can align with fresh food availability). We provide evidence that suggests sex differences in cache size are likely driven by a stronger positive connection between cached resources and components of fitness for males than for females. Specifically, males with larger caches have greater siring success than males with smaller caches, whereas for females, only early breeding females experience a positive effect of cache size on the number of recruits produced. We also show that males sire pups and females give birth earlier in the year if they have larger caches compared with squirrels of the same sex with smaller caches. Sexual selection can thus extend beyond traits directly connected to mating behavior, and can act on traits related to acquiring resources needed to fuel reproduction that are expressed months or years in advance of breeding efforts.</span></p>
Sex-specific endocrine regulation of seasonal aggression in Siberian hamsters
<p>Coordinating physiological and behavioural processes across the annual cycle is essential in enabling individuals to maximize fitness. While the mechanisms underlying seasonal reproduction and its associated behaviours are well-characterized, fewer studies have examined the hormonal basis of non-reproductive social behaviours (e.g., aggression) on a seasonal timescale. Our previous work suggests that the pineal hormone melatonin facilitates a 'seasonal switch' in neuroendocrine regulation of aggression in male and female Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus), specifically by acting on the adrenal glands to increase the production of the androgen dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) during the short-day (SD) photoperiods of the non-breeding season. Here, we provide evidence that the activity of 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase/∆5-∆4 isomerase (3β-HSD), a key enzyme within the steroidogenic pathway that mediates DHEA synthesis and metabolism, varies in a sex-specific and melatonin-dependent manner. Although both male and female hamsters displayed increased aggression in response to SDs and SD-like melatonin, only males showed an increase in adrenal 3β-HSD activity. Conversely, SD and melatonin-treated females exhibited reductions in both adrenal and neural 3β-HSD activity. Collectively, these results suggest a potential role for 3β-HSD in modulating non-breeding aggression and, more broadly, demonstrate how distinct neuroendocrine mechanisms may underlie the same behavioural phenotype in males and females.</p>
Using web-sourced photographs to examine temporal patterns in sex-specific diet of a highly sexually dimorphic raptor
<p><span>Traditional methods to study raptor diet are usually limited temporally, e.g., prey remains at nesting sites, and are unsuitable to examine dietary changes throughout the year. Using web-sourced photography, we explore temporal patterns in prey size and key prey species between sexes of the sexually dimorphic Eurasian Sparrowhawk (</span><em>Accipiter nisus</em>) throughout the United Kingdom. We examined 666 photographs of sparrowhawk on prey and identified the prey species involved, together with sparrowhawk sex. Changes in prey size and proportions of key prey species over time (seasonally and monthly) were explored for each sex. Prey weight was substantially higher for females than males. However, on average, prey size for both sexes declined during the summer period (May-June) being the lowest in June which is the main nestling-rearing month for both sparrowhawks and their prey. Compared to summer, Rock Doves (<em>Columba livia</em>) were more important prey for female sparrowhawk in winter. Whereas, for males, Eurasian Blackbirds (<em>Turdus merula</em>) were more important in spring compared to autumn. Web-sourced photography can overcome several limitations of previous methods used to study raptor diet including the ability to quantify diet between the sexes throughout the entire year, however, may also introduce a prey-size bias towards larger prey items.</p>
Data from: Sex-specific effects of dietary restriction on physiological variables in Japanese quails
<p>Nutritional limitation is a common phenomenon in nature that leads to trade-offs among processes competing for limited resources. These trade-offs are mediated by changes in physiological traits such as growth factors and circulating lipids. However, studies addressing the sex-specific effect of nutritional deficiency on these physiological variables are limited in birds. We used dietary restriction to mimic the depletion of resources to various degrees and investigated sex-specific effects on circulating levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and triglycerides in Japanese quails (<em>Coturnix japonica</em>) subjected to <em>ad libitum</em>, 20%, 30% or 40% restriction of their daily requirement, for two weeks. We also explored the association of both physiological variables with body mass and egg production. While dietary restriction showed no effects on circulating IGF-1, this hormone exhibited a marked sexual difference, with females having 64.7% higher IGF-1 levels than males. Dietary restriction significantly reduced plasma triglyceride levels in both sexes. Females showed more than six-fold higher triglyceride levels than males. Triglyceride levels were positively associated with body mass in females while showed not association in males. Overall, our findings revealed sex-specific expression of physiological variables under dietary restriction conditions, which coincide with body size.</p>
Key habitat for male Strix nebulosa (Great Gray Owls) varies across the diurnal cycle and reflects sex-specific role, data archive
<p>We used GPS tracking and remotely-sensed environmental data to evaluate whether breeding-season habitat selection by adult male <em>Strix nebulosa </em>(Great Gray Owls) (n = 19) varied across diurnal periods (dawn, day, dusk, and night). To address knowledge gaps related to nocturnal habitat, we also evaluated finer-scale, microhabitat selection by male owls at night. Here, we include both the remotely-sensed habitat data and on-the-ground microhabitat data associated with owl locations. Generally, <em>S. nebulosa </em>are associated with mature forests for nesting and meadows for foraging. Yet, in our study, owls avoided herbaceous wetlands during the day but strongly selected them at dawn, dusk, and at night, indicating context-dependent habitat selection. Moreover, owls avoided dry meadows at all times of the day, suggesting that wet rather than xeric meadows are important for foraging. Owls also preferred nighttime microhabitats that facilitated foraging, such as those with presence of primary prey and open understories dominated by graminoids and forbs. During the daytime, owls preferred higher canopy cover and areas with increased soil moisture, which likely provided suitable roosting habitat. Understanding of habitat preferences across sexes, activity periods, and other contexts can improve the identification and conservation of critical habitat for wildlife.</p>
Genetic sex determination, sex chromosome size and sex-specific lifespan across tetrapods
<p>Sex differences in lifespan are ubiquitous across the tree of life and exhibit broad taxonomic patterns that remain a puzzle, such as males living longer than females in birds and <em>vice</em> <em>versa</em> in mammals. The prevailing "unguarded-X" hypothesis explains sex differences in lifespan by differential expression of recessive mutations <span>o</span>n the X or Z chromosome of the heterogametic sex but has only received indirect support to date. An alternative hypothesis is that the accumulation of deleterious mutations and repetitive elements on the Y or W chromosome might lower the survival of the heterogametic sex ("toxic Y" hypothesis). Here, we use a new database to report lower survival of the heterogametic relative to the homogametic sex across 136 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, as expected if sex chromosomes shape sex-specific lifespans, and consistent with previous findings. We also found that the relative sizes of both the X and the Y chromosomes in mammals (but not the Z or the W chromosomes in birds) are associated with sex differences in lifespan, as predicted by the "unguarded-X" and the "toxic Y". Furthermore, we report that the relative size of the Y is negatively associated with male lifespan in mammals, so that small Y size correlates with increased male lifespan. In theory, toxic Y effects are expected to be particularly strong in mammals, and we did not find similar effects in birds. Our results confirm the role of sex chromosomes in explaining sex differences in lifespan across tetrapods and further suggest that, at least in mammals, "toxic Y" effects may play an important part in this role.</p>
Sex-specific paternal age effects on offspring quality in Drosophila melanogaster
<p>Advanced paternal age has been repeatedly shown to modulate offspring quality via male- and/or female-driven processes, and there are theoretical reasons to expect that some of these effects can be sex-specific. For example, sex allocation theory predicts that, when mated with low-condition males, mothers should invest more in their daughters compared to their sons. This is because male fitness is generally more condition-dependent and more variable than female fitness, which makes it less risky to invest in female offspring. Here, we explore whether paternal age can affect the quality and quantity of offspring in a sex-specific way using Drosophila melanogaster as model organism. In order to understand the contribution of male-driven processes on paternal age effects, we also measured the seminal vesicle size of young and older males and explored its relationship with reproductive success and offspring quality. Older males had lower competitive reproductive success, as expected, but there was no difference between the offspring sex ratio of young and older males. However, we found that paternal age caused an increase in offspring quality (i.e., offspring weight), and that this increase was more marked in daughters than sons. We discuss different male- and female-driven processes that may explain such sex-specific paternal age effects.</p>
Genetic variation in sexual size dimorphism is associated with variation in sex-specific plasticity in Drosophila
<p><span>The difference in body size between females and males, or sexual size dimorphism (SSD), is ubiquitous, and yet we have a poor understanding of the developmental-genetic mechanisms that generate it, and how these mechanisms may vary within and among species. Such an understanding of the genetic architecture of SSD is important if we are to evaluate alternative models of SSD evolution, but is difficult to describe because SSD is a characteristic of populations, not individuals. Here, we overcome this challenge by using isogenic lineages of <em>Drosophila</em> to measure SSD for 196 genotypes. We demonstrate extensive genetic variation for SSD, primarily driven by higher levels of genetic variation for body size among females than males. While we observe a general increase in SSD with sex-averaged body size (pooling for sex) among lineages, the vast majority of variation in SSD is independent of sex-averaged body size, and shows a strong genetic correlation with sex-specific plasticity, such that increased female-biased SSD is associated with increased body-size plasticity in females. Our data are consistent with the condition-dependence hypothesis of sexual dimorphism, and suggest that SSD in <em>Drosophila</em> is a consequence of selection on the developmental-genetic mechanisms that regulate the plasticity of body size. </span></p>
Data and code for: Sex-specific trait architecture in a sexually size dimorphic spider
<p class="MsoNormal">Sexual dimorphism, or sex-specific trait expression, may evolve when selection favours different optima for the same trait between sexes, i.e., under antagonistic selection. Intra-locus sexual conflict exists when the sexually dimorphic trait under antagonistic selection is based on genes shared between sexes. A common assumption is that the presence of sexual-size dimorphism (SSD) indicates that sexual conflict has been, at least partly, resolved via decoupling of the trait architecture between sexes. However, whether and how decoupling of the trait architecture between sexes has been realised often remains unknown. We tested for differences in architecture of adult body size between sexes in a species with extreme SSD, the African hermit spider (<em>Nephilingis cruentata</em>), where adult female body size greatly exceeds that of males. Specifically, we estimated the sex-specific importance of genetic and maternal effects on adult body size among individuals that we laboratory-reared for up to eight generations. Quantitative genetic model estimates indicated that size variation in females is to a larger extent explained by direct genetic effects than by maternal effects, but in males to a larger extent by maternal than by genetic effects. We conclude that this sex-specific body-size architecture enables body-size evolution to proceed much more independently than under a common architecture to both sexes.</p>
Data from: Sex-specific selection patterns in a dioecious insect-pollinated plant
<p>This is an experimental research project which aims at understanding how natural and sexual selection gradients (and differentials) vary according to sex in a dioecious insect-pollinated species, <em>Silene dioica.</em> Moreover, Bateman gradients are estimated using two sampling methods for genotyped offspring acquisition. The following dataset was obtained on the whole flowering season and includes:</p> <ul> <li>individual information (population cohort etc.)</li> <li>18 floral traits (using mean for repeated measures)</li> <li>female reproductive success</li> <li>male reproductive success (clean results from CERVUS, with and without paternity share)</li> <li>male and female mating success (estimating with different sampling methods)</li> </ul>
Data for: Sex-specific transgenerational plasticity: Developmental temperatures of mothers and fathers have different effects on sons and daughters
<p>Each parent can influence offspring phenotypes via provisioning of the zygote or sex-specific DNA methylation. Transgenerational plasticity may therefore depend on environmental conditions experienced by each parent. We tested this hypothesis by conducting a fully factorial experiment across three generations of guppies (<em>Poecilia reticulata</em>), determining the effects of warm (28°C) and cold (21°C) thermal backgrounds of mothers and fathers on mass and length, and thermal performance (sustained [Ucrit] and sprint swimming speeds, citrate synthase and lactate dehydrogenase activities; 18, 24, 28, 32 and 36°C test temperatures) of sons and daughters. Offspring sex was significant for all traits except for sprint speed. Warmer mothers produced sons and daughters with reduced mass and length, and warmer fathers produced shorter sons. U<sub>crit</sub> of male offspring was greatest when both parents were raised at 28°C, and warmer fathers produced daughters with greater U<sub>crit</sub>. Similarly, warmer fathers produced sons and daughters with greater metabolic capacities. We show that thermal variation experienced by parents can modify offspring phenotypes, and that predicting the impacts of environmental change on populations would require knowledge of the thermal background of each mothers and fathers, particularly where sexes are spatially segregated.</p>
Data for: Weak sex-specific evolution of locomotor activity of Sepsis punctum (Diptera: Sepsidae) thermal experimental evolution lines
<p><span>Elevated temperatures are expected to rise beyond what the physiology of many organisms can tolerate. Behavioural responses facilitating microhabitat shifts may mitigate some of this increased thermal selection on physiology, but behaviours are themselves mediated by physiology, and any behavioural response may trade-off against other fitness-related activities. </span><span>We investigated whether experimental evolution in different thermal regimes (Cold: 15°C; Hot: 31°C; Intergenerational fluctuation 15/31°C; Control: 23°C) resulted in genetic differentiation of standard locomotor activity in the dung fly <em>Sepsis</em> <em>punctum</em>. We assessed individual locomotor performance, an integral part of most behavioral repertoires, across eight warm temperatures from 24°C to 45°C using an automated device. We found no evidence for generalist-specialist trade-offs (i.e. changes in the breadth of the performance curve) for this trait. Instead, at the warmest assay temperatures, hot-selected flies showed somewhat higher maximal performance than all others, especially cold-selected flies, overall more so in males than females. Yet, the flies' temperature optimum was not higher than that of the cold-selected flies, as expected under the 'hotter-is-better' hypothesis. Maximal locomotor performance merely weakly increased with body size. These results suggest that thermal performance curves are unlikely to evolve as an entity according to theory and that locomotor activity is a trait of limited use in revealing thermal adaptation.</span></p>
Data for "Ecosystem heating experiment reveals sex-specific growth responses in fish"
<p>Data for the paper "Ecosystem heating experiment reveals sex-specific growth responses in fish" in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.</p> <p>One file contains the back-calculated fish length-at-age used for all analyses in the study. The other file contains the temperature data used to create Figure S2.</p>
Data from: Spatial structure imposes sex-specific costs but does not reduce interlocus sexual conflict
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Quantifying the phenome-wide response to sex-specific selection in Drosophila melanogaster
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Using web-sourced photographs to examine temporal patterns in sex-specific diet of a highly sexually dimorphic raptor
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Sex-specific effects of experimental ectoparasite infestation on telomere length in great tit nestlings
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Temporal and spatial variation in sex-specific abundance of the avian vampire fly (Philornis downsi)
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.