Patterns in research and data sharing for the study of form and function in caviomorph rodents

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Biology
• Zoology
• Ecology

Background:

• Renewed interest in morphology-adaptation links driven by morphometrics, phylogenetics, and open data.
• Caviomorpha rodents offer a diverse model for studying form-function relationships due to their taxonomic and ecological variety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate research patterns and data sharing in ecomorphology studies of Caviomorpha.
• To assess the availability and integration of morphological and ecological trait data.

Main Methods:

• Reviewed 41 publications on Caviomorpha ecomorphology.
• Recorded data types used and their availability; re-digitized shared data.
• Created relational tables and concatenated specimen lists, standardizing data for future analyses.

Main Results:

• Studies covered 63% of extant Caviomorpha species, representing all families and genera.
• Species-level trait data were rarely provided; specimen-level data were even less common.
• Morphological and ecological data were heterogeneous, necessitating relational data structuring.

Conclusions:

• Highlights the continued importance of scientific collections in biodiversity research.
• Enables integration of specimen information with species trait data for enhanced comparative studies.
• Standardized datasets facilitate future morphometric and phylogenetic comparative research in Caviomorpha.