title: Morphological and geographical traits of the british odonata.
abstract: Trait data are fundamental for many aspects of ecological research, particularly for modeling species response to environmental change. We synthesised information from the literature (mainly field guides) and direct measurements from museum specimens, providing a comprehensive dataset of 26 attributes, covering the 43 resident species of Odonata in Britain. Traits included in this database range from morphological traits (e.g. body length) to attributes based on the distribution of the species (e.g. climatic restriction). We measured 11 morphometric traits from five adult males and five adult females per species. Using digital callipers, these measurements were taken from dry museum specimens, all of which were wild caught individuals. Repeated measures were also taken to estimate measurement error. The trait data are stored in an online repository (https://github.com/BiologicalRecordsCentre/Odonata_traits), alongside R code designed to give an overview of the morphometric data, and to combine the morphometric data to the single value per trait per species data.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, United Kingdom ; Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Gary D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Powney
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences Department, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, United Kingdom ; School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Louise J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Barwell
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Phil
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bowles
authors.affiliation: Zoology Department, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Robert N L
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Fitt
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alyson
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pavitt
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Rebecca A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Spriggs
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nick J B
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Isaac
keywords: Odonata; body size; distribution status; generation time; habitat preference; trait data; wing length