Objectives and content
The squamate reptiles water loss data base or SquamEWL is the result of a collective effort to compile standard evaporative water loss data of extant squamate reptile species from around the globe, including lizards, snakes and amphisbaenians. The taxonomy of this group is regularly updated by The Reptile DataBase web service, which provides a reference for species names in our data sets.
The understanding of ecological responses to global changes, of adaptations along environmental gradients and of evolutionary radiations in past and present environments calls for global, comprehensive databases of the functional traits of extant species. Resistance to water loss is a critical functional trait determining ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change through its effects on the water balance of the organism and functional links with energy budget and behavior. In particular, evaporative water loss (EWL) is an important avenue of water loss in many terrestrial or semi-terrestrial animals. Yet, a proper quantification of geographic and phylogenetic variation in EWL requires to control for confounding factors which influence standard measures of whole-organism water loss performed in the laboratory. In this project, we generated the first comprehensive, global and validated database of total, respiratory and cutaneous EWL for more than 300 species of squamate reptiles from across the globe. The EWL data are provided along data of metabolic rates for those samples where such data are available in order to make it possible to calculate critical biophysical parameters of a model describing the water budget of ectotherms freely available in the NicheMapR program.
The first version of the dataset, which is based on a survey of literature up until 2020, contains more than 2500 sample estimates along with associated errors and comprehensive metadata to allow for meaningful comparisons and statistical analyses of intra- and inter-specific variation in EWL rates. It comes with a program written in R language to check the data integrity, compute statistics and produce a uniform dataset of records expressed in the same unit (in mg water per hour) and allows extraction of standard water loss rates (measured for animals at rest under normal low temperature conditions) or filtering data according to their quality.
The database, citation files and meta-data can be downloaded from the Data page where we maintain a permanent, citable and updated version of the datasets. We will update the database with published and submitted data regularly.
To help us improve the database, please communicate your published articles and send your comments (e.g., requests for correction on the updated datasets) directly to Jean-François Le Galliard. If you want to help us fill the datasets, please use the freely available data template. All information about the metadata are provided in a reference listed below and are regularly updated on the Data page. Alternatively, you can send us raw unpublished data with a short description of the protocols and all contact details. We will produce a citable database from your datasets and include them in our data.
Team
Jean-François Le Galliard, CNRS, France
Chloé Chabaud, Université de la Rochelle, France
François Brischoux, CNRS, France
Miguel A. Carretero, CIBIO and Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Denis Otávio Vieira de Andrade, Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, Brazil
Andréaz Dupoué, Sorbonne Université, Post-doc, France
Rodrigo Gavira, CNRS, Post-doc, France
Olivier Lourdais, CNRS, France
Marco Sannolo, CIBIO and Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Tom J. M. van Dooren, CNRS, France
Funds
Compilation of the database was funded by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Aquatherm: ANR-17-CE02-0013 to JFLG) and a doctoral grant from Ecole normale supérieure to CC.
Authors contribution
Jean-François Le Galliard and Tom van Dooren conceived the project, organized the data collection, and collected and checked data. François Brischoux, Andréaz Dupoué, Rodrigo Gavira and Olivier Lourdais contributed to project conception and helped with data collection and management. Miguel A Carretero, Marco Sannolo and Diego Andrade contributed data and helped with data collection. Chloé Chabaud helped with data collection, data formatting and technical validation.
References
Le Galliard, J.-F., Chabaud, C., de Andrade, D.O.V., Brischoux, F., Carretero, M.A., Dupoué, A., Gavira, R., Lourdais, O., Sannolo, M. & van Dooren, T.J.M. (2020) SquamEWL: A worldwide and annotated database of evaporative water loss rates in squamate reptiles. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3666172. Type: dataset
Le Galliard, J.-F., Chabaud, C., de Andrade, D.O.V., Brischoux, F., Carretero, M.A., Dupoué, A., Gavira, R., Lourdais, O., Sannolo, M. & van Dooren, T.J.M. (2021) A worldwide and annotated database of evaporative water loss rates in squamate reptiles. Global Ecology and Biogeography.