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...