Species characteristics of felids and canids, and the number of articles published for each species between 2013 and 2017

The data presented are related to the research article entitled “Biases in wildlife and conservation research, using felids and canids as a case study” available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2018.e00423. This data article lists species characteristics of two families of the order Carnivora, the Felidae and Canidae, and quantitatively categorizes research output for each species. The species characteristics that were included in the dataset are body size (in kg), geographic range size, IUCN species status, population trend, likelihood of being a keystone species, number of species per genus, the Evolutionary Distinctiveness (ED) score, and the Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) score. All scientific articles that were published on felid and canid species between 2013 and 2017 were listed and subdivided into the following research topics: (1) ecology and behaviour, (2) conservation and wildlife management, (3) anatomy and physiology, (4) diseases and other health issues, (5) captive housing and artificial reproduction, (6) genetic diversity and phylogenetic structure, and (7) taxonomy and palaeoecology. All the data is made publically available.


Subject area
Biology More specific subject area Conservation management Type of data Data is presented in this article and publically available for educational, commercial, or scientific purposes.

Value of the data
This data can be used to find trends and gaps in carnivore research. This data can assist in setting prioritization schemes for conservation. This data can highlight biases in wildlife and conservation research.

Data
It is important find biases in wildlife research to better allocate conservation funds in the future [1]. For instance, there is a research-implementation gap in scientific research with regards to species conservation [2][3][4]. Certain species are being studied considerably more often than other species [5,6], and research is not yet focussed on taxa that need it the most [7]. Preferably, wildlife biologists should attempt to focus on species that are endangered, have a limited geographic range, fill a keystone role in the ecosystem, or are taxonomically distinct [1,2,4]. This article lists species characteristics of two families of the order Carnivora: the Felidae (hereafter felids) and Canidae (hereafter canids), and quantitatively categorizes research output for each species.
This article includes 37 felid species and 36 canid species. Body size was based on average weight (in kg) derived from [8] for felid species and [9] for canid species (Table 1). Body weight ranged from 1.8 to 173 kg in felids, and 1 to 39 kg in canids.
The conservation status, population trend and geographic range size were listed for each species (Table 2) and based on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) Red List of Threatened Species [10]. For IUCN status, species with a higher risk of extinction are ranked in higher categories, from Data Deficient (DD), Least Concern (LC) to Near Threatened (NT), Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), and Critically Endangered (CR). Most species are of Least Concern, and felid species are more often threatened with extinction than canids (Fig. 1). Population trend is either unknown, decreasing, stable, or increasing. Geographic range size was based on distribution maps provided by the IUCN and divided into seven categories for the purpose of this data overview: (1) o 10,000 km 2 ; (2) 10,000-100,000 km 2 ; (3) 100,000-900,000 km 2 ; (4) 1-4 million km 2 ; (5) 5-9 million km 2 ; (6) 10-19 million km 2 ; and (7) 4 20 million km 2 . Most species had a geographic range size of 1 to 4 million km 2 (Fig. 2).
The likelihood of being a keystone species (hereafter keystone effect) was predicted for each species and based on the following definition: "a strongly interacting species whose top-down effect on species diversity and competition is large relative to its biomass dominance within a functional group [11]." The keystone effect was divided into three categories: (1) top predator with a strong topdown effect in a functional group, (2) meso predator with a moderate top-down effect in a functional Puma yagouaroundi 4.9 Table 2 The IUCN status, population trend and geographic range size for felid and canid species. IUCN status was Least Concern (LC), Near Threatened (NT), Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically Endangered (CR). Geographic range size was (1) o 10,000 km 2 , (2) 10,000-100,000 km 2 , (3) 100,000-900,000 km 2 , (4) 1-4 million km 2 , (5) 5-9 million km 2 , (6) 10-19 million km 2 , or (7)  group, and (3) small predator with a minor top-down effect in a functional group ( Table 3). The majority of felid and canid species are small predators (Fig. 3). Taxonomic uniqueness was listed for each species, by deriving Evolutionary Distinctiveness (ED) scores and Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) scores [12]; the higher the score, the higher a species' conservation priority (Table 4). We also predicted taxonomic uniqueness by counting the number of species per genus; a monotypic genus, which consists of only one representative, has a higher conservation priority Table 5.  All scientific articles published on felid and canid species between 2013 and 2017 were listed (Supplementary material S1 for felids and S2 for canids). The research papers were subdivided into the following research topics: (1) ecology and behaviour, (2) conservation and wildlife management, (3) anatomy and physiology, (4) diseases and other health issues, (5) captive housing and artificial reproduction, (6) genetic diversity and phylogenetic structure, and (7) taxonomy and palaeoecology. For felids, most research papers were related to conservation and wildlife management, and for canids most papers were related to diseases and other health issues (Table 5).