Data from: Hunting promotes sexual conflict in brown bears

The removal of individuals through hunting can destabilize social structure, potentially affecting population dynamics. Although previous studies have shown that hunting can indirectly reduce juvenile survival through increased sexually selected infanticide (SSI), very little is known about the spatiotemporal effects of male hunting on juvenile survival. Using detailed individual monitoring of a hunted population of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Sweden (1991–2011), we assessed the spatiotemporal effect of male removal on cub survival. We modelled cub survival before, during and after the mating season. We used three proxies to evaluate spatial and temporal variation in male turnover; distance and timing of the closest male killed and number of males that died around a female's home range centre. Male removal decreased cub survival only during the mating season, as expected in seasonal breeders with SSI. Cub survival increased with distance to the closest male killed within the previous 1·5 years, and it was lower when the closest male killed was removed 1·5 instead of 0·5 year earlier. We did not detect an effect of the number of males killed. Our results support the hypothesis that social restructuring due to hunting can reduce recruitment and suggest that the distribution of the male deaths might be more important than the overall number of males that die. As the removal of individuals through hunting is typically not homogenously distributed across the landscape, spatial heterogeneity in hunting pressure may cause source–sink dynamics, with lower recruitment in areas of high human-induced mortality.Data_Archiving_JAE-2015-00663Cub survival before (den emergence to mid-May), during (mid-May to mid-July), and after the mating season (mid-July to November) in brown bears in Sweden. Each line represents a litter. 'FemaleID' is the ID of the mother of the litter. Age indicates the age (years) of the mother. Status is the parity of the mother (primiparous or multiparous). Distance to the closest male killed is to the closest registered adult male killed within the 1.5 previous years. Timelag is whether the closest male was killed 0.5 or 1.5 years before the litter was born. The number of male shot are the number of registered adult male killed within the previous 1.5 years in a radius of 25km of a litter or between a radius of 25 to 80km of a litter. 'Population_density' is an index that approximate the number of bears within 1000 km² around the home range center of a litter. 'Food_index' is an index of the general food condition of the study population for each year