Maternal Cortisol and Offspring Fitness in Coral Reef Fish

Observational and experimental field data from a study on the coral reef fish Acanthochromis polyacanthus investigates the effects of habitat degradation and social crowding. The dataset likely contains maternal cortisol levels, offspring size at emergence, growth trajectories, and mortality rates. It provides evidence for how environmental stressors propagate across generations via endocrine pathways, impacting recruitment dynamics.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relationship between habitat type (degraded vs. coral-rich) and maternal cortisol levels
• Modeling the effect of experimentally elevated maternal cortisol on offspring size and growth trajectories
• Investigating the demographic cost of maternal stress through offspring mortality data
• Studying the interaction between social crowding (high-density environments) and physiological stress markers

Strengths

• Dataset is associated with a published experimental field study establishing causality
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse
• Cross-platform presence on figshare indicates established sharing

Limitations

• Column names and exact row count are not provided, limiting immediate usability
• Metadata completeness is low; organization and specific data collection methods are not detailed

Provenance

Source

Mark I. McCormick

Collection Method

Field-based observational and experimental data collection, including cortisol implants.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 24

Geography

Coral reef environments, specific location not stated.