Temnothorax rugatulus ants do not change their nest walls in response to environmental humidity

Overview

Data used for manuscript: Temnothorax rugatulus ants do not change their nest walls in response to environmental humidity

Structure of the data

SupplementalHygrometerDatabase.csv

Raw hygrometer data that is used to calculate the average environmental humidity and temperature for each Trial:Salt combination

Colony: Unique experimental colony identifiers

TrialNumber: Sequential trial number (1-4) that is NOT unique for each colony - see "Trial"

Salt: Saturated salt solution used

"Date Time, GMT-07:00": Date and time of each observation

Temp: Temperature in celcius

RH: Relative humidity (%)

Trial: The trial number for each individual colony, each colony underwent two trials

HumidityExperimentalDatabase.csv

Raw experimental data with nest features and colony size

Colony: Unique experimental colony identifiers

Trial: The trial number for each individual colony, each colony underwent two trials

TrialNumber: Sequential trial number (1-4) that is NOT unique for each colony - see "Trial"

Day: The day in the experimental timeline (always 10, but days 1 and 5 were captured and not considered)

Area: Area of the built nest wall (mm2)

Length: Length of the built nest wall (mm)

Nest.Area: Area of the internal nest space (mm2)

HumLevel: Whether the colony started with a higher or lower relative humidity (High/Low)

Number.Ant: The number of workers in the colony

Number.Brood: The number of brood in the colony

Number.Queens: The number of brood in the colony

Salt: Saturated salt solution used

SubstrateISide: Substrate I placement in the container from the perspective of looking out from the nest entrance

StartWtI: The initial weight (g) of the available substrate I building nest wall material

UsedWtI: The weight (g) of the available substrate I building nest wall material following the experimental building phase

StartWtII: The initial weight (g) of the available substrate II building nest wall material

UsedWtII: The weight (g) of the available substrate II building nest wall material following the experimental building phase

CollWallWt: The weight (g) of the experimental nest wall that each colony built

HumidMortalityRaw.csv

Raw experimental data with proportion of workers and brood dead after each colony underwent Trial 1

Colony: Unique experimental colony identifiers

WorkerDeath: Proportion of workers that died

BroodDeath: Proportion of brood that died

TrialNumber: Sequential trial number (1-4) that is NOT unique for each colony

PorosityComparisonRaw.csv

Data used for comparing the porosities of each experimental substrate, experimentally built walls, and collected Temnothorax rugatulus walls

Porosity is the percentage of void space in compact substrate - PoreVolume/TotalVolume

SubstrateID: A unique identifier for each substrate replicate

Trial: The trial number for each individual colony, each colony underwent two trials (only applicable for experimentally built walls)

SubCategory: The type of substrate (Sub I, Sub II, Built, Natural)

TotalVolume: The combined pore (void space in compact substrate grains) and soil volume (ml) of a substrate

PoreVolume: The void space in between compact substrate grains (ml)