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Dryad

Data and climate variable selection from: Effects of density, species interactions and environmental stochasticity on the dynamics of British bird communities

Cite this dataset

Sandal, Lisa et al. (2022). Data and climate variable selection from: Effects of density, species interactions and environmental stochasticity on the dynamics of British bird communities [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.crjdfn34r

Abstract

Our knowledge of the factors affecting species abundances is mainly based on time-series analyses of a few well-studied species at single or few localities, but we know little about whether results from such analyses can be extrapolated to the community level. We apply a Joint Species Distribution Model to long-term time-series data on British bird communities to examine the relative contribution of intra- and interspecific density dependence at different spatial scales, as well as the influence of environmental stochasticity, to spatio-temporal interspecific variation in abundance. Intraspecific density dependence has the major structuring effect on these bird communities. In addition, environmental fluctuations affect spatiotemporal differences in abundance. In contrast, species interactions had a minor impact on variation in abundance. Thus, important drivers of single-species dynamics are also strongly affecting dynamics of communities in time and space.

Usage notes

A) The raw data and corresponding information about location, habitat type and area (Marchant et al. 1990, Freeman et al. 2007). The raw data should be cited as Marchant et al. (1990) and Freeman et al. (2007).

B) The three top-ranking combinations of species-specific time-windows of mean temperature (Temp) and precipitation sum (Prec) for each species, identified using a sliding-window approach. Months are denoted from 01 to 12 (January through December). The starting and closing month of the time-windows are indicated before and after the # symbol, so that for instance 09#08 runs from September through August. A number one indicates that the covariate was not included in the model. The topmost model for each species (in terms of AIC and deltaic values), which is selected for further analyses, is indicated in bold letters.

References:

Freeman, S. N., D. G. Noble, S. E. Newson, and S. R. Baillie. 2007. Modelling population changes using data from different surveys: the Common Birds Census and the Breeding Bird Survey. Bird Study 54:61-72.

Marchant, J., R. Hudson, S. P. Carter, and P. Whittington. 1990. Population trends in British breeding birds. British Trust for Ornithology, Tring, Hertfordshire, UK