Data for: Molt timing and duration of northern elephant seals

Life history timing influences many ecosystem processes including predator-prey interactions, information transfer, disease transmission, ecosystem services, and resource subsidies. Many animals and plants have species-typical annual cycles, but individuals vary in their exact timing of life history events. However, quantifying individual variation in the timing and duration of life history events requires longitudinal sampling and may necessitate advanced analytical techniques if observations are imperfect or asynchrony is prevalent. Our goal was to examine factors that influence variation in molt duration and timing across individual northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). We quantified the onset and progression of fur loss in 1,178 individual seals over seven years. We found a wide range of molt start dates (95% interval spanning 60.1 days within a single age-sex category) and rapid molt progression (6.0 days in adult females and 10.8 and 10.3 days in juvenile females and ..., , , # Molt timing and duration of northern elephant seals

---

Six .csv files contain processed data (each row is a year-seal combination), and one .r file contains the code to fit the models and reproduce the figures.

## Description of the Data and file structure

*Headers in the \"MoltMSFinal.csv\" file are as follows:*

X = unique year-identifier for each seal
age = animal age, years
N = number of observations for that year-seal
best = molt date (50% progress), days since January 01
slope = molt duration (days)
card = if a number is present, the female had a pup during the breeding season
sex = male or female
arrival = modeled arrival date, days since January 01
departure = modeled departure date, days since January 01
tenure = haul-out duration, days
agesexcat = age-sex category

*Headers in the \"MoltMSFinalModelOut.csv\" file are as follows:*

graphx = date, days since January 01
pred1 = model fit (predicted molt progress, %)

*Headers in the \"MoltMSFinalCircular.csv\" file are as follow...