Data for "The impact of weather variation on the body condition of cape cobras (Naja nivea) in the Kalahari — implications for climate change"

Data associated with: Scholtz, K. Alexander, G. Beck, T. Maritz, R. and Maritz, B. 2025. The impact of weather variation on the body condition of cape cobras (Naja nivea) in the Kalahari — implications for climate change.Rainfall data: Data on mean daily rainfall was averaged from four rain gauge stations (located at Dedeben, Kraal, Witberg and Tarkuni) within Tswalu Kalahari Reserve (South Africa) from 2001 to 2022. Raw data processed via weather-prep.Rmd script. GPS points located within metadata (gauges_meta) Rainfall_raw Temperature data: Mean daily maximum temperature from the Van Zylsrus weather station provided by the South African Weather Services. Raw data processed via weather-prep.Rmd script.Body Condition data" current file = Body condition.csv Mass (g), snout-vent length (SVL) (mm), tail length (TL) (mm), sex, and date of capture were recorded for each individually identifiable snake. Rainfall and temperatures were joined to each capture date to create a dataset of environmental variables for each snake lagged by 4-, 12-, 24- weeks. Raw data processed via weather-prep.Rmd script.Fitness data: current file = Fitness.csv Data filtered to include only individuals greater than 1000 mm (reproductively active) and captures within the breeding season (September to November)—SpringPrevious summer weather: current file = Rain_Temp.csv Cumulative rainfall (mm) and the average daily maximum temperature in the preceding summer (December-April).Dataframes are loaded from the inputs directory. These were processed and cleaned in the weather-prep.Rmd script. processed_weather_data.RData` contains the following dataframes:avg_monthly_rain_all: Monthly average rainfall data (averaged over all years) averaged over four rain gaugesavg_monthly_temp_all: Monthly average temperature data (averaged over all years)monthly_rain_ts: Time series (2017-2022) of monthly average rainfall data averaged over four rain gaugesavg_monthly_temp_vz: Time series (2017-2022) of monthly average temperature data from Van Zylsrus weather stationPlease notify us if you would like to use these data in a publication ([e-mail]) and provide recognition to our efforts by citing our database and publication in your work.