Life histories of 9,488 bird and 4,865 mammal species

Abstract

AbstractI use 56,214 life history data to estimate equilibrium life history models for birds and mammals with body mass estimates. Missing parameters were estimated by allometric correlations at the lowest taxonomic level (genus, family, order, class) with data. The estimation is optimised to predict the existing data, with precision estimated separately for the different taxonomic levels of the estimator. This provides complete life history models for 9,488 species of birds, and 4,865 species of mammals. Each model includes estimates of metabolism, net assimilated energy, individual growth, mortality, fecundity, age of reproductive maturity, generation time, life span, home range, population density, biomass, population consumption, and a relative measure of intra-specific interactive competition, providing 387,531 parameter estimates in total.