Over the past two decades, digitization of U.S. vertebrate collections has opened critical temporal, spatial, and taxonomic information from specimens, stimulating new levels of data sharing and significantly advancing biodiversity knowledge. However, still missing are the specimen-level trait data essential for establishing faunal baselines and informing predictions of global change response. We propose the Ranges Digitization Network (Ranges), which will close this gap by mobilizing an estimated >5 million trait measurements from 1.2 million specimens from Western North America (WNA). WNA is a region of high temperate mammal diversity and a natural laboratory for studying speciation, phenotypic diversification, biogeographic principles, and community assembly over deep and shallow timescales. To build capacity for transformative research in these areas, Ranges brings together a digitization network of 19 institutions, expands informatics tools for trait extraction and standardization from specimen records, and immediately (in Year 1) provisions specimen-linked trait data in usable form via existing portals. The specific goals of Ranges will be to: 1) Digitize traits from 1.2 million mammal specimens, append these to digital records, and publish openly in community repositories; 2) digitize, georeference, and mobilize four regionally significant mammal collections, making their data research-ready for the first time; and 3) develop dense, intraspecific-level 3D image resources for >3,500 mammal specimens to facilitate acquisition of complex internal traits that can be linked to complimentary, specimen-level datasets existing in an extended specimen network. The Ranges Project Ranges is an NSF-funded project that seeks to digitize traits from over one million mammal specimens from 19 natural history museums, with a focus on western North America. The project will allow researchers to build better baselines for biodiversity and improve predictions of how mammals respond to changing environments to address major digitization challenges, expand the utility of specimens and use them to create new scientific knowledge. Website: https://ranges-network.org/ Give Credit Where Credit is Due Please cite this Zenodo resource AND any additional DOIs from individual institutional downloads. Ranges Baseline Sources The Ranges Baseline Trait Collection contains 19 datasets downloaded from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) in January/February of 2024. The institutions represented are all participants in the Ranges Network. The purpose of this dataset is (1) to provide a baseline of the traits digitized by the 19 Ranges institutional participants prior to the start of the Ranges digitization effort, and (2) to update the FuTRES traits index to include occurrenceIDs for each record in the FuTRES traits portal (https://futres-data-interface.netlify.app/). Source Institutions (for a complete list of citations see the document, SourceDataset_DOIs.tsv.: Date Institution DOI 20240227 ASU, Arizona State University https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.pztqzk 20240110 CAS, California Academy of Sciences https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.897qq5 20240227 CSULB, California State University, Long Beach https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.cfh4uq 20240110 DMNS, Denver Museum of Nature and Science https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.v5y2pr 20240227 FMNH, Field Museum of Natural History https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.gzuptm 20240110 HSUVM, California Polytechnic Univ. Humboldt, Vertebrate Museum https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.tyds38 20240227 KU, Univ. of Kansas Natural History Museum https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.7g7j8m 20240227 LACM, Natural History Museum of LA County https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.9hrst8 20240225 MSB, Univ. of New Mexico, Museum of Southwestern Biology https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.5wwfu9 20240225 MVZ, Univ. of California Berkeley, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.5mbsge 20240110 TCWC, Texas A&M Univ., Biodiversity Research & Teaching Collection https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.26eh3k 20240110 TTU, Texas Tech University https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.45wsbt 20240227 UAM, University of Alaska, Museum of the North https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.8c95qk 20240225 UMMZ, University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.w7a35w 20240225 UMNH, Natural History Museum of Utah https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.2erdam 20240227 UMZM, Univ. of Montana, Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.jevgd8 20240225 UNR, University of Nevada Museum of Natural History https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.fbcvye 20240225 UWBM, Univ. of Washington, Burke Museum https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.s5u9z5 20240227 UWYMV, University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrates https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.9wsn76 Traits represented in the Ranges Baseline The Ranges Baseline dataset contains measurements for 56 specific mammal traits. A complete list of the traits is available in the attached file, Ranges Baseline Trait List.pdf. Statistics for the Ranges Baseline Record set info: 1,849,448 records 1,779,593 occurrenceIDs 19 institutions Measurements across all traits (total): 2,941,833 Taxonomic Representation*: Percent of Extracted Digital Traits by Mammalian Order - See attached file, Graphic_ Percent of Extracted Digital Traits by Mammalian Order.pdf. Each layer of the plot depicts cumulative percent of traits available per taxonomic Order. The outer layer shows values for all traits, and the inner two layers show values for just morphological and reproductive traits, respectively. Only data that were mappable to a formerly or currently recognized mammalian order were considered. Measurements per trait (summary): mean 52,532.73 median 3401.5 range 0 - 437,752 Measurements per trait (all, ordered) (6 columns): Trait Total Meas. Trait Total Meas. Trait Total Meas. hind_foot_length_mm 437752 pregnancy_state 14085 mammary_count 266 total_length_mm 409444 tragus_length_mm 13370 tail_length_ambiguous 234 tail_length_mm 391253 hind_foot_length_units_inferred 12320 ear_length_estimated 123 body_mass_grams 388288 embryo_size_length_mm 9541 ovary_length_mm 84 ear_length_mm 344047 embryo_count_right 7624 hind_foot_length_estimated 81 hind_foot_length_includes 335367 embryo_count_left 7417 ovary_width_mm 79 ear_length_measured_from 233196 placental_scar_count 7187 placental_scars_side_1 49 total_length_units_inferred 42786 forearm_length_units_inferred 3685 placental_scars_both_sides 47 tail_length_units_inferred 35685 placental_scars_right_side 3652 placental_scars_side_2 47 placental_scars_present 31274 embryo_size_units_inferred 3151 ovary_description 9 ear_length_units_inferred 27396 placental_scars_left_side 3066 forearm_length_estimated 5 total_length_ambiguous 23875 body_mass_estimated 1857 embryo_count_males 5 vagina_state 22708 total_length_estimated 1357 tragus_length_estimated 3 body_mass_ambiguous 22277 tail_length_estimated 1267 embryo_count_females 3 body_mass_units_inferred 22013 mammary_state 1113 embryo_count_side_1 2 lactation_state 21317 tragus_length_units_inferred 932 embryo_count_side_2 2 forearm_length_mm 21257 embryo_size_width_mm 299 ovary_size_units_inferred 1 embryo_count 20585 gonad_length_mm 273 gonad_size_units_inferred 0 ear_length_ambiguous 17808 gonad_width_mm 269 Measurements per institution (all, ordered): institutionCode total measurements institutionCode total measurements MSB 1095463 CAS 37027 UAM 542499 HSU 34556 UWBM 354348 UNR 15002 MVZ 203000 ASU 3304 TTU 189785 UWYMV 1284 LACM 136305 CSULB 0 DMNS 106071 FMNH 0 UMNH 96830 TCWC 0 KU 69774 UMMZ 0 UMZM 56585 Statistics Per Institution A complete tally of the number of trait measurements by institution per trait type is available in the attached file, Ranges Baseline Traits: Measurements per Trait by Institution.pdf. *Disclaimer Some taxonomic names in this collection may be assigned to non-mammalian taxa or may no longer be valid. All data are presented as downloaded from GBIF.org. Users of this data are responsible for their own data quality and completeness checking. The Ranges Network is not responsible for the quality and completeness of these data.