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.