Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) whisker growth, position and length data by Attard et al. 2021

The R script and data used in Attard <i>et al.</i> 2021 "Whisker growth in Tasmanian devils (<i>Sarcophilus harrisii</i>) and applications for stable isotope studies" published in the journal <i>Ecosphere</i>. Descriptions of each file are provided below.<br><b><br></b><b>R script: </b><b>Tasmanian devil vibrissae growth rate and length</b>This R script contains all code used to analyse data and create figures for the manuscript. The script uses Tasmanian devil whisker growth rate and length data available in csv files 1 to 3. <br><b>File 1: Tasmanian devil stable isotope whisker growth data</b><br><br>Stable isotope data for the longest facial whisker taken from six captive Tasmanian devils. A single whisker was taken per individual. Each whisker was cut into sections starting from the follicle (base) using a scalpel. The sections were standardised to weigh between 0.6 to 0.8 mg (2-8 mm length). The length of each whisker segment was recorded. The base of the whisker represents the date the whisker was removed, and peaks in nitrogen stable isotope values represent separate isotope labelling events, whereby animals were fed enriched isotope-labelled glycine (99% for carbon and 98% for nitrogen). These peaks were used to calculate the increase in whisker length over a unit of time.<br><b>File 2: Tasmanian devil whisker position and length data</b><br>Raw data for intradermal, extradermal and total length of whiskers taken from 13 Tasmanian devils used to assess the arrangement and relative length of mystacial whiskers on the face. Whisker length was taken at all positions on the left and right side of the face for each individual.<br><b>File 3: Asymptotic whisker length of wild Tasmanian devils</b><b><br></b>Raw data used to measure asymptotic length (L_a) of the longest whisker collected from 617 live wild Tasmanian devils. For each position, estimated intradermal length is the mean intradermal length of 13 preserved Tasmanian devils (see File 2). Extradermal length is the length of the longest whisker cut from live wild Tasmanian devils. Estimated total length is the sum of estimated intradermal length and measured extradermal length of the longest whisker. Asymptotic length is the estimated total length + 1% of the estimated total length.<br><b>File 4: </b><b>Tasmanian devil average growth rate with root estimate</b>Average whisker growth rate is exported from the R script as a csv file. File 3 updates the total length of the whisker for two specimens with whiskers that were cut rather than plucked for the captive stable isotope study by adding the estimated intradermal root length (3.8 mm) of Tasmanian devil whiskers.