Project Information

Motivation and Goals

The 10kTraits website is a new resource for researchers engaged in comparative studies of primate populations. The comparative method plays a central role in understanding primate behavior and evolution, but its efficacy is contingent upon the quality of the data. Recent studies and reviews have highlighted problems when researchers conduct comparative studies based on older, often erroneous data that cannot be traced to primary sources (for more information, see Borries et al. 2013, Patterson et al. 2015). Furthermore, although primatologists are producing incredibly rich data on different primate populations, comparative analyses at the species level have failed to make the most use of these data, especially in terms of intraspecific variation. To move forward as a field, evolutionary anthropologists need updated databases that account for real trait variation within species. To fill this gap, 10kTraits is intended to be transparent, up-to-date, and selective.

Transparent: Fully referenced, every data point is linked to a published scientific article or book. In some cases, where published data for a species are sparse, we make use of PhD dissertations.

Do you think a data point is suspicious? Check the primary source and if still not satisfied, let us know!

Up-to-date: As new data become available, or as errors are identified, we will release regular updates to the database. Database updates will make note of any major changes.

Do you think a data point is missing? Have you recently published a more up-to-date estimate for some trait, or studied a new population? Let us know and we’ll consider including it in the next update.

Selective: We strongly emphasize wild populations, except for a handful of traits (e.g., brain size, body size, and gestation length). Even among wild populations, we aim to only include the best data for each species, based on study duration, sample size, and field method.

Do you think a data point is biased and not worth including? Let us know, and we’ll investigate.

If you use data from this website, please indicate the version that you used and cite the following reference:

Bray J, Amoroso CR, Vining AQ, Nunn CL. 10kTraits: A Database for Comparative Primatology. Beta release.

Suggestions on best use

Coming soon!

Acknowledgements

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (BCS-1355902, Biological Anthropology) and Duke University. We thank Ryan Hardy and Victor Rocha for assistance with database design and website development.

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