Data from: Dress for success: Climate pressures predict fur insulation and body size in natural and reintroduced populations of a threatened marsupial

Phenotypic variation in functional traits underpins responses to
environmental gradients, influencing thermoregulation, energy balance, and
long-term persistence under climate extremes. Climate change is altering
these gradients globally, yet in species that have disappeared from much
of their range, adaptive phenotypes may have also been lost, potentially
limiting population viability following reintroduction to different
climates. The greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is a threatened Australian
marsupial that has undergone severe range contraction since European
settlement and has been the focus of subsequent conservation
translocations. To test hypotheses of climate-associated morphological
divergence, we quantified spatial variation across its historical
distribution and in reintroduced populations in traits that are key
determinants of heat exchange and thermal buffering: skull size (as a
proxy for body size), ear length, and fur morphology (dorsal and ventral
hair length, depth, and width). Data were collected from museum specimens
held across nine natural history collections in Australia, the United
Kingdom, and the United States, and from live-captured individuals at two
conservation reserves in South Australia (Arid Recovery Reserve and Venus
Bay Conservation Park). Museum specimen records are accompanied by
specimen metadata and CHELSA v2.1 climate variables extracted for each
locality (Karger et al., 2017, 2021). The dataset comprises seven CSV
files and one R Markdown code file. It is suitable for reuse in studies of
ecogeographic variation, intraspecific trait–climate relationships,
thermoregulation, and conservation translocation outcomes in mammals.
There are no legal or ethical restrictions on reuse; no data on human
subjects are included.