MADA: Malagasy Animal trait Data Archive

Species are characterized by their behavioral, physiological and ecological attributes, which determine their role in ecosystems. In turn, ecosystems and their functions are defined by the species that inhabit them. Thus, evaluating the functional diversity and distributions of species is of utmost importance to studies of biogeography, community ecology, macroevolution, and conservation. The functional diversity of species are determined by traits such as diet, foraging strata, trophic level, activity cycle, litter size, generation length, habitat breadth and body mass. While there has been a recent growth of information regarding the vertebrate taxa of Madagascar, this information is not always easy to access (non-digitized), and is often fragmented by taxon, location, trait, or combinations thereof. Here, we present the Malagasy Animal trait Data Archive (MADA), a compilation of these and other functional traits, representing the ecological and geographical diversity of all 214 extan...物种以其行为、生理及生态特征为核心表征，这些特征决定了其在生态系统中的功能角色。反之，生态系统及其生态功能亦由栖息其中的物种所界定。因此，评估物种的功能多样性与分布格局，对于生物地理学、群落生态学、宏进化及保护生物学研究而言至关重要。物种的功能多样性由一系列功能性状所决定，包括食性、觅食层位、营养级、活动周期、窝仔数、世代时长、生境广度以及体质量等。尽管近年来关于马达加斯加脊椎动物类群的研究数据有所增长，但这些信息往往难以获取（尚未数字化），且常按类群、分布区域、性状或其组合呈现碎片化状态。在此，我们构建了马达加斯加动物性状数据档案库（Malagasy Animal trait Data Archive, 缩写MADA），该库整合了上述及其他功能性状数据，涵盖了马达加斯加全部214种现存...