Data from: Comparative analysis of animal growth: a primate continuum revealed by a new dimensionless growth rate coefficient

The comparative analysis of animal growth still awaits full integration into life history studies, partially due to the difficulty of defining a comparable measure of growth rate across species. Using growth data from 50 primate species, we introduce a modified ‘general growth model’ and a dimensionless growth rate coefficient β that controls for size scaling and phylogenetic effects in the distribution of growth rates. Our results contradict the prevailing idea that slow growth characterizes primates as a group: the observed range of β values shows that not all primates grow slowly, with galago species exhibiting growth rates similar or above the mammalian average, while other strepsirrhines and most New World monkeys show limited reduction in growth rates. Low growth rate characterizes apes and some papionines. Phylogenetic regressions reveal associations between β and life history variables, providing tests for theories of primate growth evolution. We also show that primate slow growth is an exclusively postnatal phenomenon. Our study exemplifies how the dimensionless approach promotes the integration of growth rate data into comparative life history analysis, and demonstrates its potential applicability to other cases of adaptive diversification of animal growth patterns.动物生长的比较分析仍有待完全融入生命史研究，其部分成因在于难以定义跨物种可比的生长速率衡量标准。我们利用50种灵长类（primate）的生长数据，提出了改进版的「通用生长模型」，以及一个可控制生长速率分布中体型缩放与系统发育（phylogenetic）效应的无量纲生长速率系数β。本研究结果与“生长缓慢是灵长类类群共性”的主流观点相悖：观测到的β值范围表明，并非所有灵长类都生长缓慢——婴猴（galago）类的生长速率接近甚至高于哺乳动物平均水平，而其他原猴亚目（strepsirrhines）物种与多数新大陆猴（New World monkeys）的生长速率仅出现小幅降低。生长速率缓慢是类人猿（apes）与部分狒狒类（papionines）的特征。系统发育回归分析揭示了β与生命史变量之间的关联，为灵长类生长演化理论提供了检验依据。我们还证实，灵长类的生长缓慢现象仅存在于出生后阶段。本研究展示了无量纲方法如何推动生长速率数据与比较生命史分析的融合，并证实该方法有望应用于其他动物生长模式适应性分化的研究场景。