Co-BreeD: A milestone resource for studies on cooperative breeding

Research Highlight: Ben Mocha, Y., Woith, M., Scemama de Gialluly, S., Bruscagnin, L., Kestel, N., Markman, S., Drobniak, S. M., Baglione, V., Boersma, J., Cousseau, L., Covas, R., Braga de Miranda, G. H., Dey, C. J., Doutrelant, C., Gula, R., Heinsohn, R., Keynan, O., Kingma, S. A., Leitão, A. V., … Griesser, M. (2025). An integrative, peer-reviewed open-source cooperative-breeding database (Co-BreeD). Journal of Animal Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70154. The Cooperative-Breeding Database (Co-BreeD) is an open, peer-reviewed resource that collects data on cooperative breeding across birds and mammals, including humans. As such, it serves as a valuable resource for studies on sociality and cooperation. Currently, Co-BreeD provides population-level data on nearly 40,000 breeding events from 316 species and is growing. The database allows for cooperative breeding to be treated as a continuous rather than binary trait, and at finer spatial and temporal scales, enabling detailed exploration of the ecological and evolutionary drivers of cooperation. This novel approach revealed that alloparental care, and hence cooperative breeding, is likely more widespread than previously recognised. The importance of curated, high-quality, and accessible data across ecology and evolution is becoming evident; Co-BreeD has great potential to contribute to such collaborative, reproducible, and robust research.