DOI: 10.5061/dryad.59zw3r253
title: A dataset of ovariole number from more than 2,000 insect species

description: The number of offspring an organism can produce is a key component of its
 evolutionary fitness and life-history. This number differs widely between
 organisms, and its variation is the foundation for several hypotheses
 about life-history evolution, including the prediction that there is an
 evolutionary trade off between the number of offspring and their size. In
 insects, the number of egg-producing compartments in the ovary, called
 ovarioles, has been used as a proxy for potential offspring number in the
 study of life-history. Here we present a database of
 3,355 descriptions of insect ovariole number, with records for
 2,103 unique insect species from 28 hexapod orders. The
 dataset includes insects with a total adult ovariole number of 1 as well
 as insects with more than 10,000 ovarioles. We created this database by
 searching for descriptions of insect ovaries from the primary
 literature. We matched the taxa in this database to the currently
 accepted scientific names in taxonomic and genetic databases, which will
 facilitate the use of this data for testing hypotheses in
 offspring number evolution.
description: We searched the published literature for references to insect
 ovariole number using a predetermined set of 131 search terms, entered
 into Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) between June and October of 2019.
 Each search term consisted of an insect taxonomic group and the words
 “ovariole number”. This list was created to include all insect orders,
 many large insect families, and groups well-represented in the insect egg
 dataset. For each search term, we evaluated all publications in the first
 page of results (ten publications). For 61 search terms that had a large
 number of informative hits, significant representation, or that
 corresponded to very speciose groups, we evaluated an additional 20
 publications. If a publication reported ovariole number for one or more
 insect species, we recorded the following information: (1) genus, (2)
 species name, when available, (3) taxonomic order, (4) sample size, when
 available, (5) ovariole number, and (6) additional notes (e.g. for
 eusocial insects, whether the observation was made in a reproductive or
 non-reproductive individual).  Ovariole number was
 recorded as either an average with deviations, a range, or a single total
 value, with priority for recording given in that order when multiple data
 types were available. Ovariole number was recorded as the total number of
 ovarioles per female, summing over both the left and right adult ovaries.
 When authors reported ovariole number from a single ovary, the total value
 was calculated by doubling the reported value. When authors described
 differences between the two ovaries, this information was recorded in an
 additional notes section. Using this approach, we gathered 3,355 records
 for ovariole number from 460 publications, provided here as well. We
 matched the scientific names to additional taxonomic information using the
 software TaxReformer,  and found additional taxonomic data for 3,252 of
 the 3,355 records. We verified that TaxReformer had found a valid match
 for the record by comparing the originally recorded taxonomic order to the
 order populated by online databases, and flagged 22 taxonomic records for
 which these values did not match.
description: Ovariole Number Dataset A tab delimited
 dataset of insect ovariole number from the published literature, including
 notes on data collection.
 ovariole_number_data.tsv Ovariole Number
 Taxonomic Information A tab delimited dataset of
 taxonomic information, retrieved with TaxReformer: https://github.com/brunoasm/TaxReformer. Entries can be matched to those in the ovariole number dataset by their unique ID number. ovariole_number_taxonomic_info.tsv Ovariole Number Bibliography (BibTeX format) A bibtex file of sources cited in the ovariole number dataset. References listed here can be matched to entries in the ovariole number dataset by their unique bibliographic identifier (e.g. Iwata1958). bibliography_egg_dataset.bib Ovariole Number Bibliography (PDF format) A formatted bibliography of sources cited in the ovariole number dataset. bibliography_egg_dataset.pdf