The impact of urbanization on avian communities during the breeding season in the Huanghuai Plain of China

This dataset was collected during the 2022–2023 breeding seasons in the Huanghuaihai Plain, China, to assess the impact of urbanization on bird communities. It includes species occurrence and abundance records across multiple line transects, as well as calculated diversity indices including species richness, Shannon-Wiener index, Simpson index, and Pielou’s evenness. Environmental variables were recorded for each transect, including building index (BI), environmental noise (EN), human disturbance index (DI), and distance to county center (DCC), which were combined to form an urbanization synthetic index (USI). The dataset also incorporates five species-level ecological and life-history traits: body mass (g), diet category, clutch size, nest site, and provincial distribution. Analyses of these data indicate significant differences in species diversity and functional traits among urban, suburban, and rural habitats. USI was negatively correlated with species richness and Shannon-Wiener diversity, but showed no significant relationship with functional traits. Environmental noise, distance to county center, and the proportion of buildings within a 250-m radius were identified as key factors influencing species diversity, while environmental noise and distance to county center were the strongest predictors of functional traits. These data can be reused to examine the effects of urbanization on avian community composition and diversity, to compare biodiversity patterns across regions, or to inform conservation and urban planning strategies.