TetrapodTraits Database
Year: 2024
Type: dataset
Abstract: Tetrapods (amphibian, reptiles, birds and mammals) are model systems for global biodiversity science, but continuing data gaps, limited data standardisation, and ongoing flux in taxonomic nomenclature constrain integrative research on this group and potentially cause biassed inference. We combined and harmonised taxonomic, spatial, phylogenetic, and attribute data with phylogeny-based multiple imputation to provide a comprehensive data resource (TetrapodTraits 2.0.1) that includes values, predictions, and sources for body size, activity time, micro- and macrohabitat, ecosystem, threat status, biogeography, insularity, environmental preferences, human influence, diet, longevity, litter/clutch size, developmental mode, biome prevalence, population trend, and major threat types for all 33,281 tetrapod species covered in recent fully sampled phylogenies. While there is an obvious need for further data collection and updates, our phylogeny-informed database of tetrapod traits can support a more comprehensive representation of tetrapod species and their attributes in ecology, evolution, and conservation research. Version 3.0.0 (5 August 2026). This update includes the recomputation of all within-range proportions of land-use classes, using the HYDE database version 3.5 for the year 2025. To improve the consistency and representation of anthropic land-use classes, we replaced PropRangelands with PropConvRangeLandArea, which more accurately represents human-modified rangelands. To ensure that all HYDE-derived land-use proportions sum to 1, we removed PropGrazing (the sum of PropPasture and PropRangelands) and PropAnthroHyde (the sum of cropland, pasture, converted rangelands, and urban area), and added PropNaturalArea, defined as the complement of the anthropic land-use classes. Other modifications include the updates of natural and life-history information for additional 37 species (see Diff_v3.0.0_v2.0.1.csv for a detailed species-level record of all modifications). This release also includes a new supplementary table, SpeciesLevel_LUH2_Changes.csv, providing species-level estimates of current and projected natural and anthropic land-use coverage derived from the LUH2 database under the SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios for the year 2100. Rather than representing projected species distributions, these variables provide heuristic estimates of species-specific exposure to future land-use change by quantifying changes in natural habitat availability within each species' current geographic range. The table also includes alternative range-size metrics derived from absolute (ABS) and stabilized relative (RELS) changes in natural habitat availability for use in downstream ecological and conservation analyses. Aditional details on these metrics are available in Pyron et al. (2025). In TetrapodTraits, a “variable” refers to any individual field (column), while an “attribute” denotes a species-level measurement often associated with a specific 'trait'. Following this treatment, this version includes 28 species-level attributes represented by 140 variables, linked to their respective sources, across 33,281 tetrapod species. Specific fields identify the data source and imputation status for each attribute in TetrapodTraits, while additional tables report the 10K imputed values for each missing entry and species. Taxonomy – includes 8 attributes that inform scientific names and respective higher-level taxonomic ranks, authority name, and year of species description. Field names: Scientific.Name, Genus, Family, Suborder, Order, Class, Authority, and YearOfDescription. Phylogenetic tree – includes 2 attributes that notify which fully-sampled phylogeny contains the species, along with whether the species placement was imputed or not in the phylogeny. Field names: TreeTaxon, TreeImputed. Body size – includes 7 attributes that inform length, mass, and data sources on species sizes, and details on the imputation of species length or mass. Field names: BodyLength_mm, LengthMeasure, ImputedLength, SourceBodyLength, BodyMass_g, ImputedMass, SourceBodyMass. Activity time – includes 5 attributes that describe period of activity (e.g., diurnal, fossorial) as dummy (binary) variables, data sources, details on the imputation of species activity time, and a nocturnality score. Field names: Diu, Noc, ImputedActTime, SourceActTime, Nocturnality. Microhabitat – includes 8 attributes covering habitat use (e.g., fossorial, terrestrial, aquatic, arboreal, aerial) as dummy (binary) variables, data sources, details on the imputation of microhabitat, and a verticality score. Field names: Fos, Ter, Aqu, Arb, Aer, ImputedHabitat, SourceHabitat, Verticality. Macrohabitat – includes 19 attributes that reflect major habitat types according to the IUCN classification, the sum of major habitats, data source, and details on the imputation of macrohabitat. Field names: MajorHabitat_1 to MajorHabitat_10, MajorHabitat_12 to MajorHabitat_17, MajorHabitatSum, ImputedMajorHabitat, SourceMajorHabitat. MajorHabitat_11, representing the marine deep ocean floor (unoccupied by any species in our database), is not included here. Ecosystem – includes 6 attributes covering species ecosystem (e.g., terrestrial, freshwater, marine) as dummy (binary) variables, the sum of ecosystem types, data sources, and details on the imputation of ecosystem. Field names: EcoTer, EcoFresh, EcoMar, EcosystemSum, ImputedEcosystem, SourceEcosystem. Threat status – includes eight attributes describing species threat status according to the IUCN Red list and related literature. Field names: IUCN_Binomial, AssessedStatus, SourceStatus, AssessedStatus2, SourceStatus2, ThreatStatus, ImputedThreatStatus, and SourceImputedStatus. AssessedStatus stores the original IUCN Red List assessment, AssessedStatus2 updates the status of selected Data Deficient (DD) and unassessed (UA) species using previous authoritative assessments from the IUCN or taxonomic working groups, and ThreatStatus further expands coverage by incorporating published imputed threat statuses where available. The corresponding source fields document the origin of each assessment, while ImputedThreatStatus indicates whether the value in ThreatStatus is imputed. See aditional details in the update message for TetrapodTraits 2.0.1 (9 March 2026). Range size – includes 2 attributes representing the species' extent of occurrence, quantified as either the number of 110 × 110 km equal-area grid cells intersected by the species' range or the total range area (km²) calculated in an equal-area projection. Field names: RangeSize, RangeSizekm2. Data derived from MOL database. For birds, we only consider the species breeding range. Latitude – coordinate centroid of the species range map. Longitude – coordinate centroid of the species range map. Biogeography – includes 8 attributes that present the proportion of species range within each WWF biogeographical realm. Field names: Afrotropic, Australasia, IndoMalay, Nearctic, Neotropic, Oceania, Palearctic, Antarctic. Data derived from Dinerstein et al. (2017). Insularity – includes 2 attributes that notify if a species is insular endemic (binary, 1 = yes, 0 = no), followed by the respective data source. Field names: Insularity, SourceInsularity. AnnuMeanTemp – Average within-range annual mean temperature (Celsius degree × 10). Data derived from CHELSA v. 1.2. AnnuPrecip – Average within-range annual precipitation (mm). Data derived from CHELSA v. 1.2. TempSeasonality – Average within-range temperature seasonality (Standard deviation × 100). Data derived from CHELSA v. 1.2. PrecipSeasonality – Average within-range precipitation seasonality (Coefficient of Variation). Data derived from CHELSA v. 1.2. Elevation – Average within-range elevation (metres). Data derived from topographic layers in EarthEnv. ETA50K – Average within-range estimated time to travel to cities with a population >50K in the year 2015. Data from Nelson et al. (2019). HumanDensity – Average within-range human population density in 2017. Data derived from HYDE v. 3.2. Land-Use coverage – Proportion of species range map covered by built-up area (towns, cities, etc.; PropUrbanArea), cropland (PropCroplandArea), pasture (PropPastureArea), converted rangeland (PropConvRangeLandArea), and natural areas (all remaining natural areas, excluding anthropic layers). Values correspond to the year 2025 and were derived from HYDE v. 3.5. Diet – includes 12 attributes covering 10 major diet types (invertebrates, endotherm vertebrates, ectotherm vertebrates, unknown vertebrates, fishes, scavenger, fruits, nectar, seeds, other plant materials) as dummy (binary) variables, data sources, and the sum of diet categories. Diet categories follow those previously reported in the EltonTraits database (Wilman et al., 2014). To ensure consistency across tetrapod classes, we adapted EltonTraits data for birds and mammals by applying a threshold of 20% of a species’ relative usage to indicate presence or absence within each diet category. Field names: DietInv, DietVend, DietVect, DietVfish, DietVunk, DietScav, DietFruit, DietNect, DietSeed, DietPlant, SourceDiet, DietBreadth. Longevity – includes 2 attributes that report maximum longevity (in years) and data sources. Field names: MaxLongevity, SourceLongevity. Litter Size – includes 3 attributes that describe the average litter or clutch size, the detailed metric reported (average, geometric mean, maximum, midpoint, unique value, or unspecified central tendency metric). Litter/clutch size was typically represented by the midpoint between reported maximum and minimum values or the geometric mean across available samples, although other measures of central tendency or single reported values were also included to maximize data coverage. Litter/clutch size data are available for 18,638 species (56% of data coverage, including at least one representative of 96.3% of families and 86.
Authors: Moura, Mario R., Ceron, Karoline, Guedes, Jhonny J. M., Chen-Zhao, Rosana, Sica, Yanina, Hart, Julie, Dorman, Wendy, Portmann, Julia M., Gonzalez-del-Pliego, Pamela, Ranipeta, Ajay, Catenazzi, Alessandro, Werneck, Fernanda, Toledo, Luis Felipe, Upham, Nathan, Tonini, Joao F. R., Colston, Timothy J., Guralnick, Robert, Bowie, Rauri C. K., Brito, Selma Freire de, Esselstyn, Jacob, Lima, Hidalgo, Mooers, Arne, Paiva, Maria Fernanda P., Pennell, Matthew, Pirani, Renata, Souza, José Alan Sales, Moroti, Matheus de Toledo, Xavier, João Paulo de Oliveira, Pyron, R. Alexander, Jetz, Walter
Institutions: Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Yale University, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Universidade Federal de Goiás, State University of New York, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Évora, Florida International University, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Arizona State University, University of Richmond, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, University of Florida, University of California, Berkeley, Universidade Estadual do Ceará, George Washington University
Language: English
Subfield: Paleontology
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6911480724