Data from: Hunting promotes sexual conflict in brown bears

The removal of individuals through hunting can destabilize social
structure, potentially affecting population dynamics. Although previous
studies have shown that hunting can indirectly reduce juvenile survival
through increased sexually selected infanticide (SSI), very little is
known about the spatiotemporal effects of male hunting on juvenile
survival. Using detailed individual monitoring of a hunted population of
brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Sweden (1991–2011), we assessed the
spatiotemporal effect of male removal on cub survival. We modelled cub
survival before, during and after the mating season. We used three proxies
to evaluate spatial and temporal variation in male turnover; distance and
timing of the closest male killed and number of males that died around a
female's home range centre. Male removal decreased cub survival only
during the mating season, as expected in seasonal breeders with SSI. Cub
survival increased with distance to the closest male killed within the
previous 1·5 years, and it was lower when the closest male killed was
removed 1·5 instead of 0·5 year earlier. We did not detect an effect of
the number of males killed. Our results support the hypothesis that social
restructuring due to hunting can reduce recruitment and suggest that the
distribution of the male deaths might be more important than the overall
number of males that die. As the removal of individuals through hunting is
typically not homogenously distributed across the landscape, spatial
heterogeneity in hunting pressure may cause source–sink dynamics, with
lower recruitment in areas of high human-induced mortality.