Data from: Life-history patterns of lizards of the world

Identification of mechanisms that promote variation in life history traits
is critical to understand the evolution of divergent reproductive
strategies. Here we compiled a large life-history dataset (674 lizard
populations, representing 297 species from 263 sites globally) to test a
number of hypotheses regarding the evolution of life history traits in
lizards. We found significant phylogenetic signal in most life history
traits, although phylogenetic signal was not particularly high. Climatic
variables influenced the evolution of many traits, with clutch frequency
being positively related to precipitation and clutches of tropical lizards
being smaller than those of temperate species. This result supports the
hypothesis that in tropical and less seasonal climates, many lizards tend
to reproduce repeatedly through the season producing smaller clutches
during each reproductive episode. Our analysis also supported the
hypothesis that viviparity has evolved in lizards as a response to cooler
climates. Finally, we also found that variation in trait values explained
by clade membership is unevenly distributed among lizard clades with basal
clades and a few younger clades showing most variation. Our global
analyses are largely consistent with life history theory and previous
results based on smaller and scattered datasets, suggesting that these
patterns are remarkably consistent across geographic and taxonomic scales.