Data from: Geography and site-specific factors, rather than recent climate, dominated Spanish wintering bird communities

Here, we analyse a dataset on the abundance of 97197 ringed birds
collected from December to February at 78 sites across eastern Spain
during the last 25 years (1997-2022). To fully understand the drivers of
species composition, we analysed the components of β-diversity (turnover
and nestedness) in relation to geographic and environmental gradients,
including long-term changes in precipitation and temperature.
Additionally, we examined the association patterns among species, species
richness, and the interactions with geographical and environmental
variables, and the temporal trends of these species and environmental
variables. Mixed Graphical Models (Graphical lasso) revealed that
dissimilarity in elevation, habitat, and sampling effort primarily drove
turnover and nestedness, and that the assemblages remained largely
stable. GLMMs showed that only six species exhibited significant
trends driven solely by temporal effects, whereas most species were driven
by longitude alone or combined spatiotemporal factors, suggesting strong
site-specific responses and no consistent general pattern in the region.
Although not statistically significant, the maximum temperature variables
exhibited a positive temporal trend, suggesting gradual warming on the
condition preceding each survey during the study period.