10.5061/DRYAD.8931ZCRPC
La Sorte, Frank
0000-0001-8521-2501
Cornell University
Somveille, Marius
Colorado State University
The island biogeography of the eBird citizen-science program
Dryad
dataset
2020
area
bird diversity
eBird
Isolation
survey completeness
2021-10-27T00:00:00Z
2021-10-27T00:00:00Z
en
464549958 bytes
2
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Aim: Island biotas face an array of unique challenges under global change.
Monitoring and research efforts, however, have been hindered by the large
number of islands, their broad distribution and geographic isolation.
Global citizen-science initiatives have the potential to address these
deficiencies. Here, we determine how the eBird citizen-science program is
currently sampling island bird assemblages annually and how these patterns
are developing over time. Location: Global. Taxa: Birds. Methods: We
compiled occurrence information of non-marine bird species across the
world’s islands (n = 21,813) over an 18-year period (2002-2019) from
eBird. We estimated annual survey completeness and species richness across
islands, which we examined in relation to six geographical and four
climatic features. Results: eBird contained bird occurrence information
for ca. 20% of the world’s islands (n = 4,205) with ca. 8% classified as
well surveyed annually (n =1,644). eBird participants tended to survey
larger islands that were more distant from the mainland. These islands had
lower proximity to other islands and contained a broader range of
elevations. Temperature, precipitation, and temperature seasonality were
at intermediate levels. Precipitation seasonality was at low and
intermediate levels. Islands located between 10-60° N latitude and 30-40°
S latitude were overrepresented, and islands located between 60-130° W
longitude were underrepresented. From 2002 to 2019, the number of islands
surveyed annually increased by ca. 96.3 islands/year. During this period,
island size decreased, distance from mainland did not change, proximity to
other islands increased, and elevation range decreased. Main conclusions:
The eBird program tends to survey larger islands containing intermediate
climates that are more isolated from the mainland and other islands. These
findings provide a framework to support the rigorous application of eBird
data in avian island biogeography. Our findings also emphasize citizen
science as a resource to support ecological research, conservation, and
monitoring efforts across remote regions of the globe.
The bird occurrence data in this dataset was acquired from eBird (ebird.org).
The zip file contains 6,573 RData files organized by month, day, and
year. Each file contains eBird checklists of non-pelagic bird species that
were observed on that date on the world's islands. A total of 4,205
islands are represented in the dataset. Each file contains the the
scientific name of the bird species (SCI_NAME), the unique submission ID
for the eBird checklist (SUB_ID), the longitude and latitude of the
submission, and the ISLAND_ID where the observation occurred. ISLAND_ID
corresponds to OBJECTID in the Sayre et al. (2018) global islands database
(doi:10.1080/1755876X.2018.1529714).