Data from: Life-history characteristics of European birds

Motivation: Birds are an extremely diverse group in terms of adaptations to environmental conditions, which is reflected in their life histories and ecological traits. Recently, functional aspects of avian diversity have been used frequently in comparative analyses as well as in community ecology studies; thus, open access to complete datasets of traits will be valuable. We focused on European bird species and compiled information about crucial ecological traits. This dataset is thus useful for research investigating large-scale patterns in European avifauna and can be used in various analyses in evolutionary ecology, macroecology or conservation biology.

Main types of variables contained: We chose several types of avian traits, such as morphological (e.g., weight, wing, bill or tarsus length), reproductive (e.g., clutch size, egg mass, incubation period or type of young) and behavioural traits (type of nest, mating system or type of parental care), dietary (e.g., folivore, granivore, insectivore or carnivore) and habitat preferences (e.g., deciduous/coniferous forest, reed or grassland).

Spatial location and grain: Europe; all breeding bird species (n = 499).

Major taxa and level of measurement: In total, we created a dataset for 499 bird species breeding in Europe and 34 key life-history traits represented in 85 variables. As a primary source of information we used the comprehensive handbook The birds of the Western Palearctic. The traits provide information about species-specific mean values. We did not record values for different geographical subspecies (i.e., the trait value always represents the average for the whole breeding area of a particular species).

Software format: The data file is in ASCII text, tab delimited, not compressed.

研究背景：鸟类在环境适应性方面是多样性极高的类群，这一特征体现在其生活史与生态性状中。近年来，鸟类多样性的功能维度频繁被应用于比较分析与群落生态学研究，因此开放获取完整的鸟类性状数据集具有重要应用价值。本数据集聚焦欧洲鸟类物种，收集了关键生态性状的相关信息，可用于研究欧洲鸟类区系的大尺度格局，也可应用于进化生态学、宏生态学（macroecology）或保护生物学等领域的各类分析。

数据集包含的主要变量类型：我们选取了多类鸟类性状，包括形态学性状（如体重、翼长、喙长或跗跖长）、繁殖学性状（如窝卵数、卵重、孵化期或雏鸟类型）、行为学性状（巢型、婚配制度或育幼类型）、食性性状（如植食性、谷食性、食虫性或肉食性）以及栖息地偏好性状（如落叶/针叶林、芦苇丛或草原）。

空间范围与采样粒度：研究区域为欧洲全境，涵盖所有繁殖鸟类物种（样本量n=499）。

核心类群与测量维度：本数据集共收录499种欧洲繁殖鸟类，包含由85个变量表征的34项关键生活史性状。本研究的核心信息来源为权威手册《The birds of the Western Palearctic》。所有性状均为物种特异性的平均值，未记录不同地理亚种的性状值（即性状值始终代表该物种整个繁殖分布区的平均水平）。

数据存储格式：数据集文件采用ASCII文本格式，以制表符分隔，未进行压缩处理。