Diversity and dominance in bird assemblages across habitats in the Ñeembucú Wetlands Complex

Understanding how diversity responds to habitat heterogeneity in a landscape is a central issue for implementing effective conservation plans. In this study, we analyzed how the composition and abundance of neotropical bird assemblages vary among habitats in the Ñeembucú Wetlands Complex, the largest wetland system in Paraguay. Bird surveys were conducted during one year within dominant habitats in the landscape: riparian forests, natural grasslands, savannas, and anthropized sites. The Ñeembucú Wetlands Complex showed a high bird richness (209 species) that contrasted with a pattern of dominance by a small set of 16 species that comprised half of the abundance. This set of oligarchic species consists of generalist species that exploited a wide variety of habitats and were well adapted to human disturbance, contributing to an important overlap in the composition of assemblages.  However, despite this overall similarity, there is still significant differentiation in bird assemblages, esp..., Study area
The study areas are located in the Humid Chaco ecoregion, in the Ñeembucú Department (southern Paraguay), and belong to the Ñeembucú Wetlands Complex. The regional climate is tropical humid with a marked seasonality: the mean annual precipitation averages 1400-1500 mm but with a dry season in winter. The average temperatures are around 16-17°C in winter (May-August) and 25-26°C in the warmer season (December-March). The altitude of the study area ranges between 50 and 124 m above sea level (a.s.l.).
Four dominant habitat types were considered in the landscape: riparian forests, natural grasslands, savannas, and anthropized habitats. Riparian forests are directly or indirectly associated with water, as they are subject to periodic flooding during the summer; they can be found along the edges of rivers, streams, and lakes or forming forest islands surrounded by wetlands and floodplains. Primary forest patches have a main canopy that is up to 25 m high, dominated by Enterolobium..., , # Bird Abundance Data in the Ñeembucú Wetlands Complex

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rfj6q57jq](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rfj6q57jq)

## Description of the data and file structure

Ñeembucu_database.xlsx contains the following information:

Transect (green column): sampling points were distributed along three transects 8-10 km long (T1, T2, T3) with sampling points being separated by a minimum distance of 500-600 m

Habitat (purple column): sampling points were assigned to one of the four dominant habitat types considered in the landscape: riparian forests, natural grasslands, savannas, and anthropized habitats

Sampling point (yellow column): ID of the samplin point

Period of sampling (blue column): month and year of the sampled inventory

Bird abundances (white columns): from Accipiter_bicolor onwards data are the total abundance of birds (number of individuals per species) per inventory. At each inventory, all birds seen or heard within a radius of 50 m from the center of each...