Data and code from: Large protected areas buffer against climate change effects on boreal bird populations

Research facility: University of Helsinki

Published Sep 16, 2026 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7d7wm3889

Data files

Sep 16, 2026 version files 553.33 KB

Abstract

The offered data is used in the study titled "LARGE PROTECTED AREAS BUFFER AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS ON BOREAL BIRD POPULATIONS". The data is breeding bird data from Finnish protected areas. One data row has density and population trends for one species during one period in one protected area, e.g. "Tree pipit, UKK National Park, the size of UKK National Park, Period 1(1980-1999), STI of Tree pipit, population trend of tree pipit, density of tree pipit.". In addition, data consist other more detailed information like the length of transects during each period in each protected area. The Finnish line transect data is collected by skilled volunteers.

Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7d7wm3889

Description of the data and file structure

File Data_journal_final.csv.gc includes the line transect data from protected areas in Finland. Line transects are done by skilled volunteers. Transects were surveyed in the early morning in June (main breeding season of birds in Finland). Each heard or seen bird is recorded throughout the transect. A transect census method provides a uniform way of counting birds over large areas. We used data from two periods, 1980–1999 (period 1) and 2010–2022 (period 2). We calculated from the data bird densities (pairs for transect kilometres) and population trends (abundance changes from period 1 to period 2.

Files and variables

File: Data_journal_final.csv.gz

Description: Data has 16 variables and 14 148 rows. Variables are species (bird species in Finnish). PA (protected area name), Latitude (Centered latitude for each Section), STI (Species Temperature Index for each species), Period (factor for two periods, period 1 (1980-1999) or period 2 (2010-2022)), deltaAbund (population trend of each species), Pintaala (protected area size in km²), loGSize (logarithic change of Pintaala), Birds_perKM_Period1 (the initial bird abundance in period 1), LinjaaKM (transects kilometres summarised for the whole period from one protected area), SizeGroup (alternative grouping method for different sizes of protected areas), N-koord (latitude), E-koord (longitude), Birds_perKm (density, i.e. birds per transect km), Birds (amount of individuals by species for each PA and for each period.

File: R_code_20251013.R

Description: The analysis has done by R Studio with code "R_code_20251013". The needed package for opening csv.gz styled data is "data.table" (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/data.table/vignettes/datatable-intro.html). Data.table and other needed packages are included in the code. Code has three used statistical models and codes for building the figures.

Code/software

The analysis were done in R Studio (version 4.4.0). The code is offered in Dryad (file R_code_20251013).