Data for: Phenotypic senescence in a natural insect population

Senescence seems to be universal in living organisms and plays a major role in life-history strategies. Phenotypic senescence, the decline of body condition and/or performance with age, is a largely understudied component of senescence in natural insect populations, although it would be important to understand how and why insects age under natural conditions.
We aimed (i) to investigate how body mass and thorax width change with age in a natural population of the univoltine Clouded Apollo butterfly (Parnassius mnemosyne, Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) and (ii) to assess the relationship of this change with sex and wing length.
We studied a population between 2014 and 2020 using mark-recapture during the whole flight period each year. Repeated measurements of body mass and thorax width and single measurements of wing length were performed on marked individuals. We analysed body mass and thorax width change with age (days since marking), wing length and the date of the first capture.
Both bod..., - single univoltine population of Clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne)
- 2014–2020, Europe, Hungary,Visegrádi-hegység
- mark-release-recapture
- in situ measurements on the field:
   - body mass (analytical scale)
   - thorax width (calipers)
   - wing length (ruler)
 
age: no. of days since an individual’s 1st measurement
time: no. of days since the first day of the flight period
mean(age): average of all age data at the time of measurements of an individual
first capture: the day of the flight period when an individual was captured for the first time
‘mean(first capture)’: the annual average of the days of first captures
mean(age) and mean(age2): the averages of all age and age2, respectively, data at the time of measurements of an individual. These ‘mean variables’ enabled us to distinguish the within-subject and between-subject effects.
log(body mass) or thorax width ~ sex*(age + mean age + age2 + mean_age2 + first capture + mean first capture + wing) + (age:wing) + (age:first capt..., Data files can be accessed using Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc.