Teratogenic effects of larval low salinity experience in development of the juvenile body in Acanthaster sp

Abstract

This item is the dataset and the Rscript supporting the manuscript titled - Teratogenic effects of larval low salinity experience in development of the juvenile body in Acanthaster sp.

This dataset captures experimental results investigating the effects of reduced salinity during the larval stage on the morphological development of juvenile crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster sp.). The data reflect teratogenic outcomes such as abnormal body plans, arm number deviations, and survival metrics under different salinity and exposure durations.

The Excel file contains five sheets:

Juvenile growth Measurements of juvenile body diameter (µm) by larval salinity treatment, exposure duration, and age (1 or 5 days). Includes replicate IDs.

Proportion normal Proportions and percentages of juveniles categorized as "normal" or "abnormal" based on morphology, by treatment and exposure time.

Proportional arm count Relative frequencies of different arm numbers (e.g., 4, 5 arms) in juveniles across treatments and ages.

Arm# Detailed arm count data per individual juvenile, including counts of individuals with 0, 4, or 5 arms and corresponding treatment metadata.

Juvenile morphology scores Individual-level scoring of morphological abnormalities (e.g., fleshy body, swelling) by treatment, replicate, and juvenile ID.

Key Variables: Larval salinity treatment (‰)

Larval salinity exposure duration (e.g., 2 or 4 days)

Juvenile age (days post-settlement)

Morphological traits (arm number, body diameter, abnormality scores)

Proportional outcomes (normal vs. abnormal development)

This R Markdown file contains all statistical analyses and data visualizations supporting the manuscript "Teratogenic effects of larval low salinity experience in development of the juvenile body in Acanthaster sp." (Clements et al., 2025). The code enables full reproducibility of the analyses, including data import, summary statistics, linear and generalized linear mixed models, and diagnostic assessments.

Contents: Packages used: readxl, dplyr, ggplot2, cowplot, lme4, car, emmeans, DHARMa, lattice, arm

Main analyses include:

Juvenile growth (1- and 5-day-old)

Body and arm morphometrics

Normal vs. abnormal morphology scoring

Five-arm development likelihood

Residual and random effects diagnostics

Data linkage: External Excel file (.xlsx) referenced for input data

Usage: This file is intended for transparent and reproducible research. Users can rerun all analyses and regenerate figures by updating the file paths to match their system.