R: Carnivora body sizes and life history traits

carnivora {ape} | R Documentation

## 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)

[Package ape version 5.1 Index]