In animal sciences, the number of published meta-analyses is increasing at a rate of 15% per year. This current review focuses on the good practices and the potential pitfalls in the conduct of meta-analyses in animal sciences, nutrition in particular. Once the study objectives have been defined, several key phases must be considered when doing a meta-analysis. First, as a principle of traceability, criteria used to select or discard publications should be clearly stated in a way that one could reproduce the final selection of data. Then, the coding phase, aiming to isolate specific experimental factors for an accurate graphical and statistical interpretation of the database, is discussed. Following this step, the study of the levels of independence of factors and of the degree of data balance of the meta-design represents an essential phase to ensure the validity of statistical processing. The consideration of the study effect as fixed or random must next be considered. It appears based on several examples that this choice does not generally have any influence on the conclusions of a meta-analysis when the number of experiments is sufficient.

A diverse small mammal fauna inhabits the tropical savannas of Kakadu National Park in northern Australia. A detailed long-term capture–mark–recapture study was conducted to estimate body growth parameters in relation to intrinsic and extrinsic factors that may influence them. Three non-linear growth increment functions were compared to determine which one best represented the general growth patterns of nine small mammal species at Kapalga. The von Bertalanffy growth increment function provided the best fit to a pooled species dataset. Hierarchical mixed-effects models were then used to examine variation in body size asymptote and growth and account for non-independence of observations. Model selection was based on the Kullback–Leibler information theoretic approach. As expected, the body size growth constant was correlated to body mass at Kapalga, and body size sexual dimorphism was evident in most species. Difference in body growth constant was only evident in Isoodon macrourus, where females showed accelerated growth. Three of the four marsupial species exhibited either temporal (annual) and spatial (catchment level) variation in body size asymptote, whereas rodent species showed none. There was no clear influence of other extrinsic factors such as fire treatment, rainfall or habitat on body size asymptote or growth rate constant. Our results suggest that body growth is largely controlled by intrinsic factors for each species such as gender in small mammal species at Kapalga. Change in body size and growth caused by human-induced changes to the landscape from factors such as altered fire regimes is unlikely to be substantial for tropical small mammals in northern Australia.