Temperament, state-dependent behaviors, and their interplay in large herbivores: Lessons from a long-term study on mule deer, elk, and bighorn sheep

Behavioral consistency and plasticity can both benefit fitness. Consistency in behavior within a specific context or situation, which we refer to as temperament, promotes adaptive responses to stimuli. Behavioral plasticity, however, allows for state-dependent responses, ensuring that behavior is a function of energetics and other internal and external conditions. Physiological state, in this context representing the nutritional dynamics of animals, exerts profound and wide-ranging influences on behaviors. Nevertheless, temperament and nutritional state may act in concert to shape behavioral responses to stimuli. Using a long-term dataset on capture of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), elk (Cervus canadensis), and bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), we evaluated the degree to which temperament or energetic state was related to behavioral response exhibited during handling. We used the repeatability in the rate of kicks during multiple capture events across time to determine whether behavior..., , , # Data from: Temperament, state-dependent behaviors, and their interplay in large herbivores: Lessons from a long-term study on mule deer, elk, and bighorn sheep

## Data

The input data for all scripts is the included .rsd file DataPull_BehavioralSyndromes_for_Dryad

The fields in this data file are as follows (with data type indicated in parentheses unit alos included where relevant):

CaptureDate (Date: YYYY-MM-DD) = Date object indicating the year, month, and day when an animal was captured

ProcessingStartTime (POSIXct: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) = Date time object indicating when an animal arrived at a processing location (Note: date portion is not reflective of when an animal was captured and is not used as such. This is simply an artifact of conversion to POSIXct type)

ProcessingEndTime (POSIXct: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) = Date time object indicating when an animal was released after processing (Note: date portion is not reflective of when an animal was captured and is not used as such. ...