Nest traits for the world's birds

Abstract

Motivation: A well-constructed nest is a key element of successful reproduction in most species of birds, and nest morphology varies widely across the class. Macroecological and macroevolutionary studies tend to group nest design into a small number of discrete categories, often based on taxonomic inference. In reality, however, many species display considerable intraspecific variation in their nest-building behaviour, and broad-level categories may include several functionally distinct nest types. To address this imprecision in the literature and facilitate future studies of broad-scale variation in avian parental care, we here introduce a detailed, global comparative database of nest building in birds, together with preliminary correlations between these traits and species-level environmental variables. Main types of variables contained: We present species-level data for nest structure, location, height, material composition, sex of builder, building time and nest dimensions. Spatial location and grain: Global. Maps are presented at the 10 × 10 level. Time period and grain: Included species are generally extant, although we present some data for recently extinct taxa. The data were collected in 2017–2021 and was drawn from secondary sources published in 1992–2021. Major taxa and level of measurement: Partial or complete trait data is presented for 8601 species of birds, representing 36 of 36 orders and 239 of 243 families. Software format: Data have been uploaded as Supplementary Material in .csv format and are separated by species and source for all traits (Dataset S1, and Metadata) as well as summarized at the species level for the major structure and location variables (Dataset S2, and Metadata).