These data relate to the following article: Evans, S. R. (2016). Gauging the Purported Costs of Public Data Archiving for Long-Term Studies. PLoS Biology 14: e1002432. This is an open access article available via the following URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002432 If using these data, please cite both the original article and this data package, following the Dryad guidelines. The data were collected solely by Simon Evans. Email: simon.evans@ieu.uzh.ch (if this is no longer active please try: s.r.evans.02@cantab.net). The data are also available as Supplementary Materials alongside the main text of the article. The files archived in Dryad have been edited to make the txt files more readable and interpretable (i.e., removing the columns containing the title of the original article, and the volume and page numbering). This information is readily available using the provided URLs or DOIs, and is not required to replicate my results. Of course, if you have any queries, please get in touch via the above email. ############### TABLE 2. The number of data packages archived in the Dryad Digital Repository each year from 2000 to 2015 for four leading journals within ecology and evolutionary biology (The American Naturalist, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Evolution, and Journal of Evolutionary Biology). Note that data packages may be published on Dryad ahead of print publication of the associated article in a journal, so in some cases the year of publication for the data package and for the associated article may not match. Column headings represent the four journal titles, as follows: Am_Nat = The American Naturalist Proceedings_B = Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Evolution = Evolution J_Evo_Biol = Journal of Evolutionary Biology