MammalBase - About

MammalBase is a database of traits, measurements and diets of the species in class Mammalia (Table 1). It also provides Proximate Analysis data for several diet items.

MammalBase aims to provide general information on mammals for broad-scale analyses in Macroecology, Palaeontology and the mammalian Community structures.

MammalBase is maintained at the Natural Sciences Unit of Finnish Museum of Natural History LUOMUS — a research institution under the University of Helsinki in Finland.

The data in MammalBase is harmonized against various standards: taxa are matched against the taxonomy of Wilson & Reeder (2005) (recent taxa) and the traits and their values are fitted with vocabularies or referenced descriptions of traits and values, for example, the dietary categories by Eisenberg (1981). Harmonizing the data that comes from various sources makes the analysis easier.

Ecological Trait-data Standard (ETS)

The Ecological Traitdata Standard (ETS) is a collection of terms for datasets on quantitative and qualitative organism properties (i.e. traits) that describe its performance or function in an ecosystem (Schneider et al., 2019).

MammalBase uses the Ecological Trait-data Standard vocabulary for most of the data imports and exports. For Data Custodians, MammalBase provides means to assign verbatimScientificName, verbatimTraitName, verbatimTraitValue and verbatimTraitUnit against the standardised terms. This process will provide a certain degree of quality checks of the data.

Table 1. Currently curated traits and measurements in MammalBase. For a current list, see Standard Traits at www.mammalbase.net/ma/

Data governance and use:

MammalBase is managed and used by several user roles (Table 2).

Definitions and Responsibilities

MammalBase Data

The completion of MammalBase is a result of long-lasting data collection and management. Despite plenty of efforts to make the database as complete and accurate as possible, some errors may prevail. None of the contributors of this database is responsible for the inconvenience possibly resulting from incorrect information. Data Users are free to use this database as a reference but are also requested to check the original data from the publications whenever available. In most cases, reasonable data curation has been done before adding data to MammalBase.

Data Category

• is a high-level classification of MammalBase Data. Each data category represents a collection of data sets with unique access requirements and standardization. For example species taxonomy, trait or dietary data.

Data User

• A Data User can be any visitor on the internet who can access the fully open, basic version of the curated data entries in MammalBase without registering as a Registered User

Registered User

• can be any researcher having an ORCID record - a unique, persistent identifier of researchers
• can download the basic version of the curated data entries and access certain parts of the website
• can become a Data Contributor
• ORCID enables us to credit the Data Contributor for the User’s effort

Data Contributor

• is a Registered User who has contributed data to MammalBase
• can upload verbatim data using the ETS formatted templates
• can download extended curated data entries with references to original data sources in ETS format
• is credited in the dataset’s Metadata section (author and bibliographicCitation)

Data Custodian

• is assigned specific data management responsibilities by a Data Steward
• is usually selected from the Data Contributors
• assigns scientificName to a verbatimScientificName and standard traitID, traitName, traitValue and traitUnit to verbatimTraitName, verbatimTraitValue and verbatimTraitUnit
• along with the Data Contributor is credited in the dataset’s Metadata section (author and bibliographicCitation)

Data Steward

• is assigned by a Data Trustee
• has the primary responsibility for the accuracy, privacy, and security of a designated set of MammalBase data
• is responsible for managing the MammalBase data standards (traits and measurements) and vocabularies

Data Trustee

• has oversight responsibility for the portion of MammalBase Data that is related to the Data Categories managed, administered or run by the Data Stewards or Data Custodians
• is responsible for selecting and agreeing on the MammalBase data standards (traits and measurements) and vocabularies

Table 2. Data governance examples. A modified representation following the NC State (2021).

If you are interested in being a Data Contributor and share your mammal measurement/trait/diet data or if you are interested in being a Data Custodian of a specific taxonomic group or a mammalian trait contact the first author of Lintulaakso et al., 2022. stating your name, current affiliation, area of expertise and your ORCID.

Minimum required attribution

Data (https://www.mammalbase.net) by The MammalBase Community / CC BY 4.0. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7462864

Suggested citation or attribution

The MammalBase Community [year]. MammalBase — Database of traits, measurements and diets of the species in class Mammalia. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Retrieved [download date] from https://www.mammalbase.net. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7462864

Eisenberg, J.F., 1981. The mammalian radiations: an analysis of trends in evolution, adaptation, and behaviour (No. 591.5: 599 EIS).

Lintulaakso, K., Polly, P.D. and Eronen, J.T., 2019. Land mammals form eight functionally and climatically distinct faunas in North America but only one in Europe. Journal of Biogeography, 46(1), pp.185-195. [DOI]

NC State, 2021. Data Categories, Trustees, Stewards, and Custodians accessed at https://oit.ncsu.edu/it-security/data-framework/data-categories-trustees-stewards-and-custodians/ [Link]

Schneider, F.D., Jochum, M., Le Provost, G., Ostrowski, A., Penone, C. and Simons, N.K. (2019) Ecological Trait-data Standard Vocabulary, v0.10, URL: https://terminologies.gfbio.org/terms/ets/pages/, [DOI]

Wilson, D.E. and Reeder, D.M. eds., 2005. Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference (Vol. 1). JHU Press.