Abstract. Studying life-history traits within and across taxonomic classifications has revealed many interesting and important patterns, but this approach to life history requires access to large compilations of data containing many different life-history parameters. Currently, life-history data for amniotes (birds, mammals, and reptiles) are split among a variety of publicly available databases, data tables embedded in individual papers and books, and species-specific studies by experts. Using data from this wide range of sources is a challenge for conducting macroecological studies because of a lack of standardization in taxonomic classifications, parameter values, and even in which parameters are reported. In order to facilitate comparative analyses between amniote life-history data, we created a database compiled from peer-reviewed studies on individual species, macroecological studies of multiple species, existing life-history databases, and other aggregated sources as well as published books and other compilations. First, we extracted and aggregated the raw data from the aforementioned sources. Next, we resolved spelling errors and other formatting inconsistencies in species names through a number of computational and manual methods. Once this was completed, subspecies-level data and species-level data were shared via a datasharing algorithm to accommodate the variety of species transformations (taxonomic promotions, demotions, merges, divergences, etc.) that have occurred over time. Finally, in species where multiple raw data points were identified for a given parameter, we report the median value. Here, we report a normalized and consolidated database of up to 29 life-history parameters, containing at least one life-history parameter for 21 322 species of birds, mammals, and reptiles.

Neuhauser [Probab. Theory Related Fields 91 (1992) 467--506] considered the two-type contact process and showed that on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ coexistence is not possible if the death rates are equal and the particles use the same dispersal neighborhood. Here, we show that it is possible for a species with a long-, but finite, range dispersal kernel to coexist with a superior competitor with nearest-neighbor dispersal in a model that includes deaths of blocks due to ``forest fires.''Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/105051606000000132 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

We introduce a multitype contact process with temporal heterogeneity involving two species competing for space on the $d$-dimensional integer lattice. Time is divided into seasons called alternately season 1 and season 2. We prove that there is an open set of the parameters for which both species can coexist when their dispersal range is large enough. Numerical simulations also suggest that three species can coexist in the presence of two seasons. This contrasts with the long-term behavior of the time-homogeneous multitype contact process for which the species with the higher birth rate outcompetes the other species when the death rates are equal.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AAP599 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org