Data and R scripts from: Which factors determine the long-term effect of poor early-life nutrition? A meta-analytic review

Early-life conditions can have long-lasting effects (experiential legacies) on an individual’s performance. Experiential legacies are an important source of variation among mature individuals because responses to early-life environments vary widely. Yet, the factors influencing the magnitudes and directions of phenotypic responses to experiential legacies are poorly understood, hindering our ability to predict adult phenotypes and population-level consequences of environmental stressors. To better understand these issues, we examined how experiential legacies varied with the type of phenotypic response (e.g., reproduction, longevity), characteristics of the individual, and characteristics of the stressful conditions imposed. We conducted a meta-analytic review (nspecies = 65, nstudies = 81), examining experiential legacies of early-life nutritional restriction. We found generally consistent negative or neutral impacts of early nutritional stress on later-life phenotypes, indicating that...