Is aggression related to inhibitory control in a free-living female songbird?

Description

This dataset contains measurements of aggression and inhibitory control in female free-living blue tits, collected from a series of field experiments. The data is in Excel (.xlsx) format and there is a README document explaining the details of the variables.

Steps to reproduce

To measure aggression and inhibitory control, we performed simulated territorial intrusions and detour-reaching tasks in the wild during the breeding season. Aggression was measured by placing a caged taxidermy decoy on top of the nest box on the day the 3rd and 7th egg were laid during the egg-laying phase, and counting the number of pecks toward the decoy during a 5-minute observation period. After hatching of the young, we placed an opaque barrier on top of the nestbox to start habituation for the detour-reaching task. The opaque barrier was placed above the nest box entrance, facing the sky, so that it did not obstruct access. During this time, we also measured neophobia as the latency to enter the nest box after placing a novel object on the roof of the nest box, which was done on day 10 (in the first year) or day 7 (in the second year) after hatching of the young. One day after habituation, we started the training phase. The opaque barrier was flipped and positioned in front of the nest box entrance, requiring birds to fly under it to enter. The next day, this barrier was replaced by a transparent barrier, and we measured inhibitory control as the ratio of successful visits (out of the first 10 attempts) to enter the nest box without hitting the barrier. For more details, please refer to the accompanying paper of the same name, in which the methods are described in greater detail.

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