COMADRE: a global data base of animal demography

Abstract

Summary The open‐data scientific philosophy is being widely adopted and proving to promote considerable progress in ecology and evolution. Open‐data global data bases now exist on animal migration, species distribution, conservation status, etc. However, a gap exists for data on population dynamics spanning the rich diversity of the animal kingdom world‐wide. This information is fundamental to our understanding of the conditions that have shaped variation in animal life histories and their relationships with the environment, as well as the determinants of invasion and extinction.Matrix population models (MPMs) are among the most widely used demographic tools by animal ecologists. MPMs project population dynamics based on the reproduction, survival and development of individuals in a population over their life cycle. The outputs from MPMs have direct biological interpretations, facilitating comparisons among animal species as different as Caenorhabditis elegans, Loxodonta africana and Homo sapiens.Thousands of animal demographic records exist in the form of MPMs, but they are dispersed throughout the literature, rendering comparative analyses difficult. Here, we introduce the COMADRE Animal Matrix Database, an open‐data online repository, which in its version 1.0.0 contains data on 345 species world‐wide, from 402 studies with a total of 1625 population projection matrices. COMADRE also contains ancillary information (e.g. ecoregion, taxonomy, biogeography, etc.) that facilitates interpretation of the numerous demographic metrics that can be derived from its MPMs. We provide R code to some of these examples. Synthesis: We introduce the COMADRE Animal Matrix Database, a resource for animal demography. Its open‐data nature, together with its ancillary information, will facilitate comparative analysis, as will the growing availability of databases focusing on other aspects of the rich animal diversity, and tools to query and combine them. Through future frequent updates of COMADRE, and its integration with other online resources, we encourage animal ecologists to tackle global ecological and evolutionary questions with unprecedented sample size.

Lifetime reproductive output: individual stochasticity, variance, and sensitivity analysis

“…The transition matrix U is part of any population projection matrix; the COMPADRE and COMADRE matrix databases provide many examples (Salguero-Gómez et al 2016;Salguero-Gómez et al 2015). The mean reproductive reward matrix R 1 can be obtained from the projection matrix, but the higher moments cannot and require assumptions of a parametric distribution for fertility.…”

Population model of an endangered amphibian: implications for conservation management

“…The breeding season lasts approximately 6 mo, with the first clutches laid at the beginning of March and the last clutches as late as August (Román & Mayol 1997); at some localities, the breeding season even lasts until autumn. Animals born early begin metamorphosis in July.…”

“…The introduction of alien invasive species, such as Natrix maura and Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, and the small number of populations led the species to the brink of extinction. Fortunately, conservation actions have mainly focused on protecting the remaining natural localities and re-introducing captive-reared animals in historical and new sites (Tonge & Bloxman 1989, Román & Mayol 1997. Previous assessments of the species' status only evaluated variables such as the occupancy area, the number of populations and the global tadpole population trend (Mayol et al 2009).…”

Sunning themselves in heaps, knots, and snarls: The extraordinary abundance and demography of island watersnakes

“…At the same time, analytical methods for generating demographic parameter estimates have improved and increased in sophistication (Halstead, Wylie, Coates, Valcarcel, & Casazza, 2012; White & Burnham, 1999). Consequently, demographic parameter estimates are becoming available for a widening range of taxa (Mesquita et al., 2015; Salguero‐Gómez et al., 2015, 2016), offering the possibility of improved interpretation and generalization, including evaluations of r ‐ K , slow‐fast, and pace‐of‐life syndromes (Bielby et al., 2007; Dunham, Miles, & Reznick, 1988; Gaillard et al., 1989, 2005; Gangloff et al., 2017; Hille & Cooper, 2015; Réale et al., 2010; Ricklefs & Wikelski, 2002; Wiersma, Muñoz‐Garcia, Walker, & Williams, 2007) and niche classification (Pianka, Vitt, Pelegrin, Fitzgerald, & Winemiller, 2017; Winemiller, Fitzgerald, Bower, & Pianka, 2015). …”

“…Although often secretive and infrequently encountered, snakes can be abundant and, as tertiary predators, exert top‐down influences on ecosystem function (Jones, King, Stanford, Lawson, & Thomas, 2009; Willson & Winne, 2016 and citations therein). Despite their diversity, snakes are poorly represented among life history data compilations, comprising, for example, just four entries among the 1,927 matrix population models in the COMADRE Animal Matrix Database (Salguero‐Gómez et al., 2016; http://www.compadre-db.org/ accessed 19 October 2017).…”