Waterbird diversity patterns under varied hydrological regimes in Dongting Lake and surrounding lakes

Globally, climate and human-induced environmental changes affect the populations and distributions of most organisms. This is particularly true for migratory birds, which change habitats throughout the annual cycle. Understanding how waterbirds adapt to environmental change is important for their conservation; however, this subject remains largely unexplored. Based on wintering waterbirds and environmental data from Dongting Lake and its surrounding lakes, we compared the changes in waterbird diversity in subregions with different habitat variations during four hydrological periods. This allowed us to identify key environmental factors affecting waterbird diversity and explore the potential mechanisms by which waterbirds adjust to these environmental changes using the waterbird habitat patch network method. The results indicated that waterbird distribution differed across Dongting Lake and the surrounding wetlands under varying hydrological conditions associated with habitat changes. No..., , # Data from: Waterbird diversity patterns under varied hydrological regimes in Dongting Lake and surrounding lakes

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.kh18932n1](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kh18932n1)

## Description of the data and file structure

waterbird data

### Files and variables

#### File: waterbird_network.xlsx

**Description:** waterbird presence data

##### Variables

* species name and their present sites
* The four sheets show the occurrence of waterbird species under different hydrological regimes. The \"extreme_drought\" represents extreme drought period, \"early_recession\" represents early recession period, \"normal_recession\" represents normal recession period, \"late_recession\" represents late recession period.

#### File: functional_groups.xlsx

**Description:** the percentage of functional group data

##### Variables

* sub-regions: EDTL represent East Dongting Lake, SDTL represent South Dongting Lake, WDTL represent West Dongting Lake, SLS represent Surrounding lakes
* func...,