Migratory routes are inherited primarily from mother in a terrestrial herbivore

For many migratory ungulates, cultural inheritance maintains migration through social transmission of information between individuals, while learning and memory inform movement within individuals. It often is assumed, but rarely tested, that offspring inherit migratory routes by learning from their mothers. Here, we evaluate whether daughters inherit migratory routes from their mothers by following 16 mother-daughter pairs of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) from each daughter’s first migration, through their yearling migration, and into adulthood. Adult routes for two-thirds of daughters overlapped with their mother’s route, suggesting that they inherited migratory routes from their mothers. The adult routes for the remaining daughters, however, bore little or no similarity to their mother’s routes, suggesting that these routes were instead shaped by individual experience or non-maternal social interactions. Regardless of whether routes were inherited or not, the strategy that daughters..., Animal capture and handling: As part of a larger study that began in 2015, adult female mule deer were captured in western Wyoming, USA, via helicopter and fit with GPS collars (VERTEX PLUS, Vectronic Aerospace GmbH, Berlin, Germany, or G2110E2, Advanced Telemetry Systems Inc, Isanti, Minnesota, USA) that collected locations every 1 or 2 hours, depending on the individual and the season (Supplemental Materials Figure S1).28 In March, we assessed whether captured deer were pregnant using ultrasonography and, if they were pregnant, inserted a vaginal implant transmitter (Advanced Telemetry Systems or Vectronic Aerospace GmbH). Upon notification of a birth event, we found the neonates and, after taking a suite of measurements, fit them with either VHF collars that were connected to the mother’s collar (M4230BU, Advanced Telemetry Systems) or GPS collars that collected locations every 2 hours (VERTEX MINI, Vectronic Aerospace GmbH). We received an alert if the neonate and mother were separa..., # Migratory routes are inherited primarily from mother in a terrestrial herbivore

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h3f](10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h3f)

This paper and associated data correspond to an investigation of whether mule deer, an often-migratory herbivore living in western North America, inherit migratory routes from their mothers. Data represent GPS data for mother-daughter pairs, as well as associated contextualizing information (e.g., animal ID, year born). Data and code accompany the paper, \"Migratory routes are inherited primarily from mother in a terrestrial herbivore\", published in Current Biology in 2025.

Data includes raw GPS data (0_WRMigRoutesClipped.RDS, 0_MomMigsClipped.RDS) and files containing information about the individual animals involved in the study (\"AnimalInfo.RDS\" and \"MomInfo.RDS\").

## DESCRIPTION OF DATA AND FILE STRUCTURE

Data are in RDS format for R.

### DATA

\-- Migratory routes / 0_WRMigRoutesClipped.RDS

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GPS points during migratory routes for...,