doi:10.1038/s41598-017-17553-1: Radar tracks, raw data

206 x text files (comma separated values)

These files contain the raw output data from the harmonic radar for bee flights that underpin the publication:

Woodgate JL, Makinson JC, Lim KS, Reynolds AM, Chittka L. Continuous Radar Tracking Illustrates the Development of Multi-destination Routes of Bumblebees. Scientific reports. 2017 Dec 11;7(1):17323. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-17553-1

These files are the output from the radar. For most uses, the processed data from these files (provided in the linked OSF archive, section ‘Coordinate data from each track’) will be preferable since they have been converted from radar-centric to geocentric coordinates so can be compared to one another and aligned with features in the real world.

Each file contains tracking data from one flight by one bee. Most files contain an entire flight but in some cases a single flight has been broken up into several sections, denoted ‘a’, ‘b’, etc. Flights were defined as the movements undertaken by a bee between leaving the nest and subsequently returning again. The radar revolves once every 3s and records a positional fix if a signal from a transponder is detected during each rotation.

Filenames are of the form ‘YYMMDD_BID_BoutXX’, where

YYMMDD: date on which track was recorded.

BID: a unique identifier for each individual bee (will be the same for every datapoint within a file). The bees were renamed for clarity in the publication according to the following scheme:

Name in data files	Name in manuscript
B56	Bee 1
B61	Bee 2
B74	Bee 3
Y01	Bee 4
O72	Bee 5
G20	Bee 6

BoutXX: number identifying how many flights each bee had made (A single bout encompasses all the activity made between the bee leaving the nest and returning again.

Each file is a text file with a 3-line header identifying the radar software, the date on which the tracks were extracted, and variable names for the subsequent rows. The rest of the file consists of comma delimited columns with a single row for each positional fix recorded. The variables are:

Date: date on which recording was made.

Time: timestamp for each positional fix.

Range: distance in m of bee from radar.

Azimuth: angle of bee from axis of radar (NB, the radar records bees’ position in polar coordinates relative to the radar’s own position. The radar is mobile and cannot be guaranteed to be in the same position on different days. To convert the track data to geocentric coordinates we record the position of several fixed landmarks at the beginning of each day’s tracking and use these to triangulate the position of the radar.)

Elev_angle: data recorded by the radar on its own state. Never used in any analysis for this paper but included for completeness.

Elevation: data recorded by the radar on its own state. Never used in any analysis for this paper but included for completeness.

V1: data recorded by the radar on its own state. Never used in any analysis for this paper but included for completeness.

V2: data recorded by the radar on its own state. Never used in any analysis for this paper but included for completeness.