If you are using R, then you are probably familiar with the mtcars data set, that is used in many R tutorials. The “car analogy” is so common in text books, that this so-called technique has its own Wikipedia page. For the rest of us, who don’t understand anything about motor cars, R-core comes with a wide selection of example data sets, some of which relate to ecology or biodiversity.
beavers
Body Temperature Series of Two Beavers
BOD
Biochemical oxygen demand versus time in an evaluation of water quality.
ChickWeight
Weight versus age of chicks on different diets
chickwts
Chicken Weights by Feed Type
McNeil, D. R. (1977) Interactive Data Analysis. New York: Wiley.
CO2
Carbon Dioxide Uptake in Grass Plants
co2
Mauna Loa Atmospheric CO2 Concentration
Started by C. David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in March of 1958 at a facility of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [Keeling, 1976]. NOAA started its own CO2 measurements in May of 1974, and they have run in parallel with those made by Scripps since then [Thoning, 1989].
InsectSprays
The counts of insects in agricultural experimental units treated with different insecticides.
McNeil, D. (1977) Interactive Data Analysis. New York: Wiley.
iris
Sepal length and width and petal length and width for 3 species of iris.
Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
Loblolly
Growth of Loblolly pine trees
lynx
Annual Canadian Lynx trappings 1821–1934
Campbell, M. J. and Walker, A. M. (1977). A Survey of statistical work on the Mackenzie River series of annual Canadian lynx trappings for the years 1821–1934 and a new analysis. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society series A, 140, 411–431. 10.2307/2345277.
npk
Nitrogen, phosphate and potassium factorial experiment on the growth of peas
Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D. (2002) Modern Applied Statistics with S. Fourth edition. Springer.
Orange
Growth of Orange Trees
OrchardSprays
Potency of various constituents of orchard sprays in repelling honeybees
McNeil, D. R. (1977) Interactive Data Analysis. New York: Wiley.
PlantGrowth
Results from an experiment to compare yields (as measured by dried weight of plants) obtained under a control and two different treatment conditions.
ToothGrowth
The Effect of Vitamin C on Tooth Growth in Guinea Pigs
Crampton, E. W. (1947). The growth of the odontoblast of the incisor teeth as a criterion of vitamin C intake of the guinea pig. The Journal of Nutrition, 33(5), 491–504. 10.1093/jn/33.5.491.
treering
Yearly Treering Data, -6000–1979
trees
Diameter, Height and Volume for Black Cherry Trees
Atkinson, A. C. (1985) Plots, Transformations and Regression. Oxford University Press.
stackloss
Operational data of a plant for the oxidation of ammonia to nitric acid
Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
Hello Álavaro, I have been reading your posts with interest. I am the technical lead for data and analytics at the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). As you are no doubt aware and indeed highlight, there are numerous gaps and challenges in nature-related data and it something we are trying to address. I’d be interested in having a chat sometime. Many thanks James