关键词: 鸟类, 生活史特征, 生态特征, 地理分布, 形态特征, 繁殖参数

Abstract

China has a total of 1,445 bird species and is one of the countries with the richest bird diversity in the world. Species traits strongly determine the species' ability to persist in a variety of environments and are fundamental to ecological, evolutionary and conservational research. Therefore, it is important to collecting data on life-history, ecological and geographic traits of Chinese birds. However, so far, no efforts have been made to gather such trait data of Chinese birds. The aim of this study is thus to provide a comprehensive dataset of natural history traits for Chinese birds. We collected data on 17 traits related to geographical, morphological, ecological and life-history features for the 1,445 species of Chinese birds. Between 2015 and 2021, we compiled data by systematically searching all related literature, including academic ornithological books, field guides, peer-reviewed scientific publications, Baidu Scholar, Google Scholar and specialized websites. The 17 traits included body mass, body length, bill length, wing length, tail length, tarsus length, primary diet, clutch size, egg size, egg volume, nest site, nest type, flocking status, migrant status, endemic status, biogeographic distribution and the number of provinces distributed of Chinese birds. However, data completeness varied from 60.83% to 100% among traits. Except for migrant status, endemic status, biogeographic distribution and the number of provinces distributed, the data on other traits were incomplete to some extent. Flocking status was only available for 60.83% of Chinese birds. Our dataset is the latest and most complete one on species traits of Chinese birds. The dataset will be helpful for advancing the research fields of ecology, evolution, biogeography, and conservation biology in Chinese birds.

Key words: birds, life-history traits, ecological traits, biogeographic distribution, morphological traits, breeding traits