Forgotten treasures: the fate of data in animal behaviour studies

• The majority of publications in biology do not make their data available in repositories.
• We evaluate data availability from articles in two well-known journals in the field.
• We list the data policy of journals that publish animal behaviour research.
• Data from articles are not available and journals do not require data archiving.
• We review resources for data archiving and provide practical guidelines.

The majority of publications across many disciplines in biology do not make their data available in repositories. On the other hand, there are several advantages associated with archiving data in open access repositories, and technological resources are available to do so. To date, no study has estimated the frequency of data from animal behaviour publications made available in digital repositories or supplementary materials. To evaluate how much data from those studies are available, we surveyed publications from two well-known journals in the field. Since journal policy is an important factor influencing the availability of data from publications, we list the data policy of each journal that publishes animal behaviour research. We found that only a small proportion of the articles published in 2013 made even part of their data available and that journals do not require data to be archived prior to or after publication. If not deposited in repositories, data supporting those findings will most likely be lost from lack of usage, inability to access obsolete storage devices or even the death of the authors. Although it is difficult to appreciate the relevance of data for future studies at the time of a research article's publication, such data may inspire fruitful opportunities that we cannot afford to lose. We discuss the benefits of making data available, review resources for data archiving and provide practical guidelines. We hope that raising awareness about this problem will help foster a data-sharing culture among animal behaviourists.