Developmental arcs of plasticity in whole movement repertoires of a clonal fish

Developmental plasticity at the behavioral repertoire level allows animals to incrementally adjust their behavioral phenotypes to match their environments through ontogeny, serving as a lynchpin between ecological factors that cue phenotypic adjustments and evolutionary forces that select upon emergent phenotypic variation. Quantifying the continuous arcs of plasticity throughout animals’ development, however, has often been prohibitively challenging. Here, we leverage recent advancements in high-resolution behavioral tracking and analysis to (i) track the behavior of 45 genetically identical fish clones (Poecilia formosa) reared in near-identical environments during their first four weeks of life at 0.2 s resolution and (ii) quantify the continuous arcs of plasticity across entire behavioral repertoires through development. Doing so, we empirically address one of the most fundamental theoretical predictions from Bayesian models of development that, in stable (but initially unknown) env..., The dataset consists of x-y corrdinate points through time at 5 Hz, in which these points represent the spatial position of 45 genetically identical fish (Amazon mollies, Poecilia formosa) in tank space, tracked from their first day of life to day 28. From x-y coordinate points, we also derive and provide timeseries of three behavioral metrics ('step length', 'turning angle', and 'distance to nearest tank wall'), which we describe in more detail below. This data was obtained via the following methods:
Genetically identical gravid mollies were isolated from a single isogenic stock kept at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (Berlin, Germany). The Amazon molly is a gynogenetic species of freshwater fish — the first described species of clonal vertebrate – with a diverse behavioral repertoire through development. Offspring from three of these isogenic mothers were used as experimental animals in behavioral observations. In addition to the original three mothers of experimental animals bein..., , # Data from: Developmental arcs of plasticity in whole movement repertoires of a clonal fish

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.x69p8cztw](10.5061/dryad.x69p8cztw)

## Description of the data and file structure

This data repository contains all data associated with the following manuscript:

[Ehlman SM, Scherer U, Bierbach D, Stärk L, Beese M, Wolf M. 2025. Developmental arcs of plasticity in whole movement repertoires of a clonal fish. iScience. 28:113189.](https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042\(25\)01450-6)

The full dataset is a timeseries, measured at 5 Hz, of x-y coordinate points, representing fish movements in lab-based tank housing from the first day of life to day 28. Contained in the data are full 28-day timeseries for 45 genetically identical Amazon molly (*Poecilia formosa*) individuals.

For ease and future convenience, the data is represented in two different formats:

(1) '***fe_dataset_csv.zip***' contains 45 .csv files, with each file corresponding to one individ..., ,