The lesser hairy­footed dunnart (<i>Sminthopsis youngsoni, Dasyuridae</i>) is a generalist marsupial insectivore in arid Australia, but consumes wolf spiders (<i>Lycosa spp., Lycosidae</i>) disproportionately often relative to their availability. Here, we tested whether lycosids have relatively high energy or nutrient contents compared to other invertebrates, and hence whether these aspects of food quality can explain selective predation of lycosids by <i>S.youngsoni</i>. Energy, lipid and protein composition of representatives of 10 arthropod families that are eaten by <i>S. youngsoni</i> in the Simpson Desert were ascertained using microbomb calorimetry, chloroform-methanol extraction and Dumas combustion. Differences between invertebrate groups were assessed using separate analyses of variance (ANOVAs) and appropriate post-hoc tests. These analyses were performed using this data.

The dataset contains a record of coastal dolphin- Australian Snubfin (<em>Orcaella heinsohni</em>) and Indo-Pacific Humpback (<em>Sousa chinensis</em>)) species sighted, total number of individuals, and group/school size in Kakadu National Park rivers between March 2007 to August 2011.

The project is focused on the topic, 'enhanced heat tolerance of virus-infected aphids lead to niche expansion and reduced interspecific competition. The two aphid species studied are <i>Rhopalosiphum padi</i> and <i>Rhopalosiphum maidis</i>. The project had some of the following objectives: [1] Spatial distribution of two aphid species on the host plants [2] Upper thermal limits of two aphid species. [3] Effects of the viral infection on the host plant thermal profile. [4] Levels of expression of heat shock protein genes of virus-free and viruliferous aphids. [5] Locomotor capacity of aphids, effects of viruses on the locomotor capacity. [6] Effects of viral infection, temperature, and competition on the lifespan and fecundity of <i>R. padi</i> [7] Effects of viral infection, temperature, and competition on the lifespan and fecundity of <i>R. maidis</i> [8] Temperature of acrylic tubes used on aphid experiments. [9] Thermal lethal dose 50 of virus-free and viruliferous aphids [10] Thermal preference of virus-free and viruliferous aphids. This information can be very useful for ecologist working on insect population dynamics as well as physiologist and eco-physiologists doing meta-analyses of expression of heat shock protein genes induced by symbionts.

The lesser hairy­footed dunnart (<i>Sminthopsis youngsoni, Dasyuridae</i>) is a generalist marsupial insectivore in arid Australia, but consumes wolf spiders (<i>Lycosa spp., Lycosidae</i>) disproportionately often relative to their availability. This project tested the hypothesis that this disproportionate predation is a product of frequent encounter rates between the interactants due to high overlap in their diets and use of space and time. This data set focuses on overlap in the use of different microhabitats of wolf spiders (<i>Lycosa spp.</i>) and the lesser hairy­footed dunnart (<i>Sminthopsis youngsoni</i>) in the Simpson Desert, south­western Queensland Australia. Microhabitat use was determined by estimating the percentage cover of seven microhabitat variables and distance to nearest cover along trails left by individuals of each species­ group and a randomly orientated (control) trail for each actual trail as a measure of the availability of each microhabitat within the local environment. Trail length was also recorded and data was collected across 16 trapping grids at Main Camp during July and October (winter and Spring) in 2017. Differences in microhabitat use between trail types (actual vs control) and species (lycosids vs dunnarts) were assessed using non­metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and permutational analyses of variance (PERMANOVA). These analyses were performed using this data.