carnivora {ape}

Carnivora body sizes and life history traits

Description

Dataset adapted from Gittleman (1986), including 2 morphological variables (body and brain sizes), 8 life history traits variables and 4 taxonomic variables.

Usage

data(carnivora)

Format

A data frame with 112 observations on 17 variables.

[,1]	Order	factor	Carnivora order
[,2]	SuperFamily	factor	Super family (Caniformia or Feliformia)
[,3]	Family	factor	Carnivora family
[,4]	Genus	factor	Carnivora genus
[,5]	Species	factor	Carnivora species
[,6]	FW	numeric	Female body weight (kg)
[,7]	SW	numeric	Average body weight of adult male and adult female (kg)
[,8]	FB	numeric	Female brain weight (g)
[,9]	SB	numeric	Average brain weight of adult male and adult female (g)
[,10]	LS	numeric	Litter size
[,11]	GL	numeric	Gestation length (days)
[,12]	BW	numeric	Birth weigth (g)
[,13]	WA	numeric	Weaning age (days)
[,14]	AI	numeric	Age of independance (days)
[,15]	LY	numeric	Longevity (months)
[,16]	AM	numeric	Age of sexual maturity (days)
[,17]	IB	numeric	Inter-birth interval (months)

Source

Gittleman, J. L. (1986) Carnivore life history patterns: allometric, phylogenetic and ecological associations. American Naturalist, 127: 744–771.

Examples

data(carnivora)
## Fig. 1 in Gittleman (1986):
plot(carnivora$BW ~ carnivora$FW, pch = (1:8)[carnivora$Family], log = "xy",
     xlab = "Female body weight (kg)", ylab = "Birth weigth (g)",
     ylim = c(1, 2000))
legend("bottomright", legend = levels(carnivora$Family), pch = 1:8)
plot(carnivora$BW ~ carnivora$FB, pch = (1:8)[carnivora$Family], log = "xy",
     xlab = "Female brain weight (g)", ylab = "Birth weigth (g)",
     ylim = c(1, 2000))
legend("bottomright", legend = levels(carnivora$Family), pch = 1:8)