Rural selection drives the evolution of an urban-rural cline in coat color in gray squirrels

Phenotypic differences between urban and rural populations are well-documented, but the evolutionary processes driving trait variation along urbanization gradients are often unclear. We combined spatial data on abundance, trait variation, and measurements of fitness to understand cline structure and test for natural selection on heritable coat color morphs (melanic, gray) of eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) along an urbanization gradient. Population surveys using remote cameras and visual counts at 76 sites along the urbanization gradient revealed a significant cline in melanism, decreasing from 48% in the city center to <5% in rural woodlands. Among 76 squirrels translocated to test for phenotypic selection, survival was lower for the melanic than gray morph in rural woodlands, whereas there was no difference in survival between color morphs in the city. These results suggest the urban-rural cline in melanism is explained by natural selection favoring the gray morph i..., , , # Data for \"Rural selection drives the evolution of an urban-rural cline in coat color in gray squirrels\"

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9w0vt4bn5](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9w0vt4bn5)

## Description of the data and file structure

**This repository contains data and code for the following manuscript:**

Cosentino, B.J., Vanek, J.P., and J.P. Gibbs. Rural selection drives the evolution of an urban-rural cline in coat color in gray squirrels. Ecology and Evolution.

The following files are included:

**cline.Rdata**
Data used to fit the cline in melanism using all data. NA values represent days when trail cameras were not active and point counts were not conducted at a given site.

**cline.R**
R code used to fit the cline in melanism using all data. The script was run with R version 4.0.2, and it uses the *jagsUI* package (version 1.5.2).

**cline\_subsetModel.Rdata**
Data used to fit the cline in melanism with a subset of data. Variable definitions are as follows:

* y.occ.g = gra...