Population changes of common European birds published in Scientific Data

The PECBMS has collected data on common and widespread bird species from national generic schemes in Europe since 2002. The coordination team calculates supranational European common bird indices and indicators of nature’s general state and health based on the large-scale and long-term dataset on changes in breeding bird populations across Europe. Data collection follows prescribed sampling strategies and well-established fieldwork protocols. The number of countries providing their data has been gradually increasing, and so has been the number of bird species covered. The first set of indicators was released in 2003, and it was based on population trend information for 48 selected terrestrial breeding birds from annual surveys in 18 countries. The most recent 2019 update provides trends for 170 species from 28 countries based on data gathered by fifteen thousand volunteers. This is an amazing achievement and has revealed some startling results.

Number of volunteer fieldworkers counting birds annually in specific European countries

Use of the outputs

During the last decades, environmental health has generally worsened, and the policy and environmental protection responses have aimed to reduce the rate of biodiversity losses and to improve the state of nature. Monitoring is a critical requirement in assessing the performance of environmental policy processes and the effectiveness of various conservation measures and is required under international treaties, including EU directives. Since birds are widespread, relatively easy to identify and count, sensitive to land use and climate change, and popular with the public, they serve as excellent indicators of the environment’s health and indicate sustainability of human use.

As a result, in 2005, the PECBMS indicators have been accepted as the first biodiversity indicators for the EU´s Structural and Sustainable Development Indicator. Moreover, the indicators have been used by other international institutions. For instance, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) publishes Farm Birds Index, the European Environment Agency (EEA) presents the Common Bird Index, and Forest Europe informs on the status and trends in forests and forestry by offering the Common forest bird indicator. The PECBMS data also feeds into global biodiversity assessments such as the Living Planet Index (LPI) and was recently showcased in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s flagship publication Global Biodiversity Outlook 5.

Besides the direct use in environmental policy, the PECBMS dataset has been widely used in scientific research. The papers have covered various topics such as the development of biodiversity and bird indicators in general, exploration of driving forces laying behind farmland or forest bird population trends, development of climate change indicators, investigation of the land-use change, and its impact on farmland birds.

Check the list of scientific papers using the PECBMS data.

The benefits of the data paper

By publishing a data paper, we achieved a peer-reviewed, valuable publication that could be cited, promoted, and readily used in the policy, conservation and research. The paper sets out in detail the nature of data collection across Europe, the statistical basis and methods used to create the database and its derived products.

In six open-source datasets saved at the Zenodo repository, we publish:

• European supra-national and national species indices
• European species trends for the whole period and three shorter periods (1990 onwards, 2000 onwards and for the last ten years of the data)
• a matrix of countries providing data for population size estimates of individual species
• a list of details on 36 national monitoring schemes from 28 countries providing data to the PECBMS

We strive to maintain the database with annual updates. The supranational species indices will be yearly updated and available through the PECBMS database deposited at Zenodo to ensure the data’s long-term public availability.

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 PECBMS results and improve both our understanding of environmental change and help tackle the biodiversity crisis.

Our special thanks go to the thousands of volunteers counting birds in the field for decades all over Europe!

Alena Klvaňová, Vojtěch Brlík, Petr Voříšek & Richard Gregory

25.03.21

How to cite the data paper

Brlík, V. et al. 2021: Long-term and large-scale multispecies dataset tracking population changes of common European breeding birds. Scientific data 8:21 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00804-2

Publicly available data

Brlík, Vojtěch, Šilarová, Eva, Škorpilová, Jana, Alonso, Hany, Anton, Marc, Aunins, Ainars, … Klvaňová, Alena. Long-term and large-scale multispecies dataset tracking population changes of common European breeding birds. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4015968 (2020).

• Supranational species indices and their standard errors up to 2017 based on data from 28 countries
• National species indices and their standard errors up to 2017 for 26 countries plus national indices from Spain and Cyprus up to 2015

Brlík, V. et al. The most recent population changes of common Spanish breeding birds.

Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4590140 (2021).

• National species indices from Spain and their standard errors for 2016 and 2017

Brlík, V. et al. The most recent population changes of common Cypriot breeding birds.

Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4590189 (2021).

• National species indices from Cyprus and their standard errors for 2016 and 2017

Notes on specific countries

Austria

Austrian species indices are publicly available up to 2017. Researchers using the data are kindly requested to notify the national scheme coordinators of their use. Contact Norbert Teufelbauer (e-mail: norbert.teufelbauer@birdlife.at), the national coordinator of Monitoring der Brutvögel Österreichs (Common Bird Census).

Cyprus

Due to specific privacy ownership rights, the most recent (2016–2017), Data from Cyprus are available under Restricted Access. Researchers interested in these most recent updates are required to provide a brief description of the data use.

Germany

For Germany, we provide national species indices up to 2017 separately for the former Eastern and Western Germany. The two regions are considered as countries in the process of computing the supra-national outputs.

The national trend data for the whole of Germany are available on request to DDA (contact Sven Trautmann; e-mail: trautmann@dda-web.de).

Check the methods used for trend calculation in the German national scheme: Kamp, J., Frank, C., Trautmann, S. et al. 2021: Population trends of common breeding birds in Germany 1990–2018. J Ornithol 162, 1–15. doi.org/10.1007/s10336-020-01830-4

Portugal

Portuguese species indices are publicly available up to 2017. Researchers using the data are kindly requested to notify the national scheme coordinators of their use. Contact Hany Alonso (e-mail: hany.alonso@spea.pt), the national coordinator of Censo de Aves Comuns (Common Bird Census).

Spain

Due to specific privacy ownership rights, the most recent (2016–2017), Data from Spain are available under Restricted Access. Researchers interested in these most recent updates are required to provide a brief description of the data use.

Authors´ comments

„I remember my first presentation sharing the idea of publishing a PECBMS data paper during the workshop in Mikulov in 2015. At that time, data papers were not so common. I explained all the advantages: peer-reviewed, publicly available dataset, promoted as ready to use by the broader research community to increase our understanding of the changes in bird populations over the last decades in Europe. Today, thanks to a massive effort of the great international network, including national coordinators, scientists, and volunteer fieldworkers, the dataset is finally published.“

Alena Klvaňová, PECBMS project manager

„I believe the paper will facilitate further use of the PECBMS outputs.“

Petr Voříšek, PECBMS senior expert, former long-term project coordinator

 „It is the first time we have published a ‘data paper’ of this kind fully describing the PECBMS dataset, our methods and data availability. It should prove to be a really handy reference. Great work by the PECBMS team to make this happen with our brilliant national coordinators.”

Richard Gregory, PECBMS project supervisor, Head of Species Monitoring and Research at the RSPB

 „No doubt it will be a landmark paper!“

Benoît Fontaine, national coordintator of the Suivi Temporel des Oiseaux Communs (French Breeding Bird Survey)

 „A necessary data paper that I am sure will very soon be a highly-cited resource!“

Frédéric Jiguet, professor in conservation ecology at Muséum national d’histoire naturelle de Paris, national coordintator of the Suivi Temporel des Oiseaux Communs (French Breeding Bird Survey)