Published December 11, 2024 | Version v8
Journal article Open

Long-term and large-scale multispecies dataset tracking population changes of common European breeding birds

Creators

  • 1. Czech Society for Ornithology, Prague, Czechia
  • 2. Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (SPEA), Lisbon, Portugal
  • 3. Catalan Ornithological Institute, Natural History Museum of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  • 4. Latvian Ornithological Society, Riga, Latvia
  • 5. Romanian Ornithological Society, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • 6. Ministère de l'Environnement, du Climat et du Développement durable, Luxembourg
  • 7. Dachverband Deutscher Avifaunisten (DDA), Muenster, Germany
  • 8. Museum & Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland
  • 9. BirdWatch Ireland, on behalf of the National Parks & Wildlife Service, Kilcoole, Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland
  • 10. MITO2000, Parma, Italy
  • 11. SEO/BirdLife, Madrid, Spain
  • 12. Aves-Natagora, Namur, Belgium
  • 13. Department for wild and domesticated taxa and habitats, Head of the Vertebrates Section, Croatian Agency for Environment and Nature
  • 14. DOF/BirdLife Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 15. UMR7204 CESCO, MNHN-CNRS-SU, Paris, France
  • 16. Sovon Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  • 17. RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, Sandy, United Kingdom
  • 18. British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford, United Kingdom
  • 19. Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds/BirdLife Bulgaria, Sofia, Bulgaria
  • 20. Section of Science, Nord University, Levanger, Norway
  • 21. BirdLife Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
  • 22. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Trondheim, Norway
  • 23. DOPPS BirdLife Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 24. Lithuanian Ornithological Society, Vilnius, Lithuania
  • 25. The Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  • 26. Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
  • 27. Hellenic Ornithological Society, Athens, Greece
  • 28. Birdlife Estonia/Estonian Ornithological Society, Tartu, Estonia
  • 29. Andorra Recerca + Innovació
  • 30. BirdLife International, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • 31. Centrale ornithologique, natur&ëmwelt a.s.b.l., Kockelscheuer, Luxembourg
  • 32. Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
  • 33. Slovak Ornithological Society/BirdLife Slovakia, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
  • 34. Swiss Ornithological Institute, Sempach, Switzerland
  • 35. BirdLife Austria, Vienna, Austria
  • 36. LIPU – BirdLife Italia, Parma, Italy
  • 37. Statistics Netherlands, The Hague, The Netherlands
  • 38. Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Nyíregyháza, Nyíregyháza, Hungary
  • 39. INBO, Brussels, Belgium

Description

Around fifteen thousand fieldworkers annually count breeding birds using standardized protocols in 30 European countries. The observations are collected by using country-specific and standardized protocols, validated, summarized and finally used for the production of continent-wide annual and long-term indices of population size changes of 170 species. Here, we present the database and provide a detailed summary of the methodology used for fieldwork and calculation of the relative population size change estimates. We also provide a brief overview of how the data are used in research, conservation and policy. We believe this unique database, based on decades of bird monitoring alongside the comprehensive summary of its methodology, will facilitate and encourage further use of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme results.

The Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme database is organised into five datasets: (1) European species indices, (2) European species trends, (3) European species trends for three short periods, (4) a list of details on the national monitoring schemes and (5) a matrix of countries providing data for population size estimates of individual species.

Moreover, national-level species indices and uncertainty estimates are also available in the PECBMS database. Due to specific privacy ownership rights, the most recent (2016-2017) data from Spain (10.5281/zenodo.4590140) and Cyprus (10.5281/zenodo.4590189) are under Restricted Access and researchers interested in these most recent updates are required to provide a brief description of the data use. The Austrian and Portuguese datasets are publicly available but researchers using these datasets are kindly requested to notify the national scheme coordinators of their use. A list of regularly updated contacts to all national scheme coordinators is provided at the PECBMS website (https://pecbms.info/country/).

We aim to maintain the PECBMS database with annual updates. The annual updates will be available through the PECBMS database deposited at this Zenodo repository to ensure long-term public availability of the data.

Updates on data acquisiton and data processing in the dataset released in 2021 are available from: https://pecbms.info/what-is-new-in-2021-data-update/

Updates on data acquisiton and data processing in the dataset released in 2022 are available from: https://pecbms.info/what-is-new-in-2022-data-update/

Updates on data acquisiton and data processing in the dataset released in 2023 are available from: https://pecbms.info/what-is-new-in-2023-data-update/

Updates on data acquisiton and data processing in the dataset released in 2024 are available from: https://pecbms.info/what-is-new-in-2024-data-update/

 

 

Disclaimers (update 2024): 

Beware the exceptional species with a new start year compared to the original time period. If the new start year equals some of the short trend year, the
new start year is deleted from trends_short (because such trends are in the table trends). The exceptional species and new start trends are 70+90+5820 (new start year 1990 deleted) and 1190+18470 (new start year 2000 deleted).

For data updates until 2023, the scientific species names follow the latest HBV-BirdLife checklist released in October 2024, https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/taxonomy
Changes are:
Bonasa bonasia - Tetrastes bonasia
Cyanecula svecica - Luscinia svecica
Sylvia undata - Curruca undata
Sylvia cantillans / Sylvia subalpina - Curruca cantillans / Curruca subalpina
Sylvia melanocephala - Curruca melanocephala
Sylvia melanothorax - Curruca melanothorax
Sylvia hortensis - Curruca hortensis
Sylvia nisoria - Curruca nisoria
Sylvia curruca - Curruca curruca
Sylvia communis - Curruca communis

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