Data from: Birth dates vary with fixed and dynamic maternal features, offspring sex, and extreme climatic events in a high-latitude marine mammal ...

• Main Authors: Rotella, Jay J., Paterson, J. Terrill, Garrott, Robert A.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2017
• Subjects: Leptonychotes weddellii; maternal effects; birth timing; birth dates; Population ecology; Weddell seals; Erebus Bay; Weddell; Antarc*; Antarctica; Weddell Seals
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.93f51; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.93f51

Reproductive synchrony tends to be widespread in diverse species of plants and animals, especially at higher latitudes. However, for long-lived mammals, birth dates for different individuals can vary by weeks within a population. A mother's birth timing can reveal useful information about her reproductive abilities and have important implications for the characteristics and survival of her offspring. Despite this, our current knowledge of factors associated with variation in birth dates is modest. We used long-term data for known-age Weddell seals in Antarctica and a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach to study how birth dates varied with fixed and temporally varying features of mothers, whether sex allocation varied with birth timing, and annual variation in birth dates. Based on birth dates for 4465 pups born to 1117 mothers aged 4–31, we found that diverse features of mothers were associated with variation in birth dates. Maternal identity was the most important among these. Unlike most studies, which ... : WESE_birthscsv file containing data on pup birth dates, pup sex, year of birth, and attributes of mothers for Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica for 4.465 pups in 28 different years during 1993 through 2014. ...