We wish to announce the creation of two sister databases for demographic studies in ecology and evolution. These databases will compile the projection matrices for matrix population models and/or the kernel functions for integral projection models (IPMs). One database contains +800 plants (ComPADRe III; Comparative Plant and Algae Demographic Research), and the other contains +600 animal species (ComADRe; Comparative Animal Demographic Research). These sister databases will go online, open-access to the scientific community during 2013.
The importance of publicly available data is increasing dramatically. Several funding agencies, including the U.S. National Science Foundation and the UK Natural Environment Research Council, now require a data management plan as part of all proposals. That plan outlines how investigators will make their data available to other researchers. In addition, some of the most important journals like Evolution, Am Nat, PLoS etc now require that authors be willing to provide all data to anyone who requests it. Although databases exist for functional traits (TRY) and gene sequences (genBank), among others, we are lacking an open-source demographic equivalent containing the wealth of published matrix models and IPMs. Over the last few years we have collected demographic, taxonomic and ecological information for >1000 species from published resources. This information is currently internally hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (www.demogr.mpg.de/) and will go open-access during 2013 in order to facilitate broad comparative demographic studies. HOW YOU CAN HELP: We are currently revising the structure of the sister databases. We recognize that our data have some challenging properties. Most studies use stage-classified models, tailored to the species' life cycle and data availability, while other models (e.g., integral projection models) use continuous state variables to model vital rates: there is no standard format. Furthermore, many studies contain several sets of values, corresponding to different locations, years, treatments, etc. Thus the metadata, the information specifying the structure of the data itself, are particularly important. In order to make ComPADRe III & ComADRe useful to the community, we are soliciting input on the following design issues: 1. What kind of metadata would be particularly useful/important to you in ComPADRe III & ComADRe? Please see http://iurl.no/V8v for an updated digitalized list. 2. Would you find it useful to access a standardize set of parameters that can be obtained from each projection matrix? (E.g., population growth rate, elasticities, sensitivities, transient dynamic parameters, age specific survival and fecundity.). If so, which ones? 3. How would you most like to access the data? We envisage an online search and download interface, but are also considering an R package to download the data directly. Please direct your suggestions/questions to "salguero AT demogr DOT mpg DOT de". We appreciate your interest in advance. The ComPADRe III & ComADRe core science committee Rob Salguero-Gomez, Hal Caswell, Owen Jones, Annette Baudisch and Jim Vaupel -- "Aliud iter ad prosperitatem nos est: id est omnibus rebus vincere" .:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:. Rob Salguero-Gómez, PhD Postdoctoral fellow Address: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, room 304 Konrad-Zuse-Str. 1. 18057 Rostock, Germany Office phone: +49 (0) 381.2081-267 (ext. 236) Fax: +49 (0) 381.2081-567 Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Skype: robertosalguerogomez Website: http://sites.google.com/site/RobResearchSite/ ---------- This mail has been sent through the MPI for Demographic Research. Should you receive a mail that is apparently from a MPI user without this text displayed, then the address has most likely been faked. If you are uncertain about the validity of this message, please check the mail header or ask your system administrator for assistance.
