Effects of Early Experiences on Competitive Behavior in Adulthood in Rats

Then the excel sheets of the behavioral data were exported, and the data obtained from all experiments were imported into SPSS for one-way ANOVA, non-parametric tests and other types of data analysis.3.Devices and tools: Elevated O-maze, 1mx1m black open field, clear plastic tube, homemade drinking restrictor. Software: Microsoft Excel, IBM SPSS2022, Noldus Ethovision XT.• Specify the temporal and geographical scopes, and temporal and spatial resolutions of your data wherever appropriate.The dataset consists of results from two experiments.

Experiment 1 was conducted from October 2 to October 20, 2021, a total of 19 days, and the experiment was conducted in 10#503 and 504 of Science and Technology Building, Qishan Campus, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China. Experiment 2 was conducted from July 31 to August 12, 2022, a total of 13 days, and the experiment was conducted in 10#504 of Science and Technology Building, Qishan Campus, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China.• Tabular data: describe the total number of data entries, the meaning of row and column headers, and the units of measurement wherever appropriate.In all data, groups are divided into three groups: the Environmental Enrichment group, denoted by EE; the Control group, denoted by Control, and the Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress group, denoted by CUMS.

In the subject names, Exp. 1 stands for Experiment 1, F for Enrichment, T for Control, Y for Stress, and the number stands for the first one; the red, black and blue of the tail markers represent three different subject rats in the same cage.Experiment 1：a. O-maze test: File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\Exp.1-O-maze test.xlsx. In sheet1, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Column A is the group, column B is the name of the individual, Columns C to J are the cumulative time in the different zones, using units of seconds and percentages, and Column N is the Percentage of time in the danger zone, in percentages.b. The novel environment feeding paradigm.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\Exp.1-The novel environment feeding paradigm.xlsx. In the novel environment, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Columns K to N: groups, tail marker, name, cumulative time, the unit used for cumulative time is seconds.c. The familiar environment feeding paradigm.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\Exp.1-The novel environment feeding paradigm.xlsx. In the familiar environment, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Columns A to D: groups, tail marker, name, cumulative time, the unit used for cumulative time is seconds.d. Open field test.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\Exp.1-Open field experiments.xlsx. In Sheet2, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Columns A to D: groups, name, cumulative duration in arena and central area.

The unit used for cumulative time is seconds. Column I is percentage of time in the central area, in percentages.e. Competitive predation test. File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\Exp.1-Competitive predation.xlsx.

In competitive predation, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Columns A to E: groups, names, tail marker, weight of food predated by the subject in 1 h, note. The unit used for weight is g.f. Tube test.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\Exp.1-Tube experiment.xlsx. In statistics, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Columns A to E: Groups, Names, Total number of wins, Percentage of wins, Grade within Groups.

The unit used for Percentage of wins is a percentage. In within Groups, Columns A to F: Groups, Left, Right, Time, Winner, Grade. The unit used for time is seconds.g. The within-cage and between-cage food competition tests.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-1\ Exp.1-Between-cage Food Competition Test.xlsx. In the within-cage food competition tests, there are 27 groups and 79 subjects' entries. Columns A to F: Groups, names, Tail marker, Accumulated time to consume food, Note, Grade.

The unit used for accumulated time to consume food is seconds. In the between-cage food competition test, there are 24 groups and 72 subjects' entries. Columns M to P: Groups, Tail marker, Time, Grade within groups.

The unit used for time is seconds.Experiment 2：a. O-maze test. File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2-O-maze test.xlsx. In sheet1, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries.

Column A is the group, column B is the name of the individual, Columns C to H are the cumulative time in the different zones, using units of seconds and percentages, and column N is the Percentage of time in the danger zone, in percentages.b. The novel environment feeding paradigm. File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2- The novel environment feeding paradigm.xlsx. In the novel environment, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries.

Columns A to D: Groups, Tail marker, Name, Cumulative time. The unit used for cumulative time is seconds.c. The familiar environment feeding paradigm. File location: Convert Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2- The novel environment feeding paradigm.xlsx.

In the familiar environment, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries. Columns A to D: Groups, Tail marker, Name, Cumulative time. The unit used for cumulative time is seconds.d. Open field experiments.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2- Open field experiments.xlsx. In open field experiment, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries. Columns A to E: Groups, Names, Cumulative duration in arena and central area.

The unit used for cumulative time is seconds and percentages. Column I is percentage of time in central area, in percentages.e. Competitive predation test. File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2- Competitive predation.xlsx.

In competitive predation, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries. Columns A to E: groups, names, tail marker, weight of food predated by the subject in 1 h, note. The unit used for weight is g.f. Tube test.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2- Tube experiment.xlsx. In statistics, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries. Columns A to E: Groups, Names, number of wins, win rate, Grade within Group.

The unit used for win rate is a percentage. In within-Group comparison, Columns A to F: Groups, Left, Right, Time, Winner, Grade. The unit used for time is seconds.g. The within-cage and between-cage food competition tests.

File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\ Exp.2-Between-cage Food Competition Test.xlsx. In the within-cage food competition tests, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries. Columns A to F: Groups, names, Tail marker, Accumulated time to consume food, Note, Grade.

The unit used for accumulated time to consume food is seconds. In the between-cage food competition tests, there are 24 groups and 72 subjects' entries. Columns L to N: Groups, Tail marker, Accumulated time to consume food.

The unit used for accumulated time to consume food is seconds.h. Modified between-cage Sucrose Competition Test: File location: Converted Data\Experiment-2\Exp.2- Modified between-cage Sucrose Competition Test.xlsx. In sheet1, there are 21 groups and 63 subjects' entries.

Columns A to F: Groups, Names, Tail marker, Cumulative time, Note, Grade. Columns K to M: Groups, Names, Cumulative time. The unit used for cumulative time is seconds.• Describe and explicate the missing data if any.In Experiment 1, the missing data were the blue tail of the EE 2 cage, which died in the home cage due to suffocation caused by getting stuck in part of the ladder of a toy, and the black tail of the CUMS 2 cage, which were excluded due to frostbite on the paws of their limbs caused by too much cold during the forced swimming experiment, which affected the subsequent experiment.

In experiment 2, we excluded the EE 2 cage and the CUMS 2 cage because these two cages had missing members, and we also excluded CUMS 8 cage because the rat in CUMS 8 had cataracts. As a result, there were only 7 cages in the CUMS group, and thus we also excluded EE 9, Control 8 and Control 9 based on differences in body weight to keep the number of cages balanced among groups.• Report data errors, error ranges, and causes wherever appropriate.In the O-maze experiment in Experiment 2, the Ethovision XT analysis could not easily catch the rats at the junction between the safe area on the right and the dangerous area on the upper side due to the inadequate placement of the O-maze, thus leading to bias in the time calculation, so we specified that the rats spent more than 95% of their time in the maze area as reasonable data, and we analyzed each rat several times to achieve the specified data.• Describe each data file including its content, format and size wherever appropriate.There are four folders: Original Data (551KB), EV Data (845M), Converted Data (328KB), and Results Data (1.04MB).

In the Original Data folder and the Converted Data folder, there are two folders for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, which contain the Excel data files for the competitive behavioral tests and anxious behavioral tests, respectively; in the Results Data folder, there are two folders for Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, which contain the SPSS data and corresponding graphs for the competitive behavioral tests and anxious behavior tests, respectively; the EV data folder contains the original and processed data for the open field test and the elevated O-maze test analyzed by Ethovision XT.• If your data are stored in a rare file format, specify the software application that can be used to open your files, coupled with the download address wherever appropriate.For the O-maze and open field data processing, the animal behavior analysis software Ethovision XT was used, so if you want to open the data for analysis you need to use the appropriate software, which can be downloaded at noldus.com/ethovision-xt.