Introduction

About seventy years have passed since Bernardelli proposed the first projection matrix model in 1941. 2014 and 2015 are the beginning of a revolutionary era in demographic research of plant and animal populations. The databases of projection matrices (COMPADRE; plant database, COMADRE; animal database) are now available on the internet, which are the output of an extraordinary effort by Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock, Germany). COMPADRE and COMADRE currently contain 12000 population projection matrices of 2200 plant and animal species, accumulated by researchers over the past 70 years. Demographic methods, that were developed in the last half century, enable the derivation of many population statistics such as sensitivities, mean life expectancy, population growth rate. Many related papers have been published, using the big data. Now, further development of statistical studies on population statistics is expected.

On this website, we provide an interpretation of the details of these databases and useful resource for such studies to help COMPADRE and CPMADRE users.