Data and R code for: Linking climate variability to demography in cooperatively breeding meerkats

This dryad repository contains data sets and R scripts for our Ecological Monographs (2025) paper: Linking climate variability to demography in cooperatively breeding meerkats. The aim of our study was to develop a mechanistic understanding of how variation in rainfall and temperature affect meerkat demography. Specifically, we:

Identified the critical period during which rainfall influences vegetation productivity at the field site.
Investigated how vegetation productivity and temperature influence meerkat foraging performance.
Examined how these climatic variables impact daily weight fluctuations and overall body condition.
Analyzed conditions under which meerkats fail to accumulate enough mass during foraging to offset overnight losses.
Explored the influence of body condition on reproduction and survival.
Projected future temperature trends and their implications for meerkat populations up to the mid and end of the century.

To achieve these aims, our study included numerous data s..., The data was collected as part of a long-term study of meerkats in the southern Kalahari Desert. All methods of data collection are outlined in the paper and are also summarised in Clutton-Brock and Manser (2016). The project's data is stored on a centralised SQL database and was processed for analyses by the lead author using R.  
All of the analyses are tied, directly or indirectly, to the effects of climate and/or vegetation productivity. Climate data included daily rainfall measured on-site, and temperature data taken from the NOAA Climate Prediction Centre. We also extracted future temperatures from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) for two future pathways: a medium-risk scenario (SSP2-4.5) and a high-risk scenario (SSP5-8.5), which we obtained from the Copernicus Climate Change service (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/). We selected the EC-EARTH3-CC model from CMIP6. Vegetation productivity was assessed using NDVI from the MODIS MOD13Q1 product the GI..., # Data and R code for: Linking climate variability to demography in cooperatively breeding meerkats

#### **📁 Thorley\_2025\_EcologicalMonographs.zip**

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.2ngf1vj11](10.5061/dryad.2ngf1vj11)

Each analysis is provided in a separate R script, with the data sets needed for each script explained in detail.

**(1) `Part1_RainfallNDVI_Climwin.R`**

\- **`MeerkatNDVIMasked.csv` **Average NDVI across the ranges of all meerkat groups (MODIS MOD13Q1).
\- `date` – dd/mm/yyyy
\- `mean_ndvi_masked` – NDVI is provided every 16 days

\- **`MeerkatRainReserve.csv` **Daily rainfall at the field site.
\- `date` – dd/mm/yyyy
\- `rain_method` – Indicates how the daily value was collected (Manual / NOAA / Station)
\- `rain_reserve` – Total daily rainfall (mm)

**(2) `Part2_ForagingPerformance.R`**

\- **`MeerkatForagingData.csv` **Historical data set of focal observations (1996–2001).
\- `IndividID` – Individual identity
\- `GroupRef` – Group identity
\- `Focal_ID` – Unique ident...,