Early life asymmetries and the allocation of cooperative care in banded mongooses in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda 2013-2016

This is a dataset of the effect of pre-natal provisioning (supply with extra food) on offspring weight and growth, contributions to offspring care, and offspring survival in banded mongooses on the Mweya Peninsula, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, collected between 2013 and 2016. Pre-natal condition of females was experimentally manipulated by provisioning half of pregnant females in each social group during the second half of pregnancy. The other half of pregnant females did not receive any extra provisioning and acted as matched controls. Through field observations we measured female weight change during pregnancy, weight change during the pup care period following birth (the escorting period), and female contributions to escorting. We also measured pup weight at birth, weight change during the escorting period, and pup survival. Data were collected to examine how extra resources are used by females to level up inequalities in pup weight via the allocation of cooperative care.