Table of Contents
Bird communities along elevation gradient in Yushan Mountain, Taiwan
Source of data
Ding (1993), Ding et al. (2005)
Description of the dataset
Estimated bird density in 50 sites across the elevation gradient, located in natural vegetation and sampled from March to July 1992. Sampling was done by the variable circular-plot method, when during four hours after sunrise, for six minutes every hour distance and sex of all birds seen or heard was recorded (not including migrant birds). On each site, birds were counted 16 times for a total of 96 minutes.
Locality
The region of Mt. Yushan (23°28′30″N,120°54′00″E) (3952 m asl), in the vicinity of the highest peak in Taiwan. The sampling stations spanned an elevation range from 1400 to 3700 m and were located in a 10 km × 10 km area.
Figure 1: Distribution of the sampling locations in the Yushan region, Taiwan. (Fig. 1 from Ding et al. 2005.)
Environmental variables
| Name of variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Veg. | Vegetation type: B - broad-leaf evergreen forests, M - mixed coniferous-broadleaf forests, S - Spruce forests, F - Fir forests, H - Hemlock forests, J - Juniper shrubland |
| Veg_ext | Vegetation types extended (according to Ding et al. 2005): MC: Machilus-Castanopsis zone, LQ - Lower Quercus zone, UQ - Upper Quercus zone, MI - mixed coniferous-broadleaf forests, SP - Spruce forests, FI - Fir forests, HE - Hemlock forests, JU - Juniper shrubland |
| ELE | Elevation [m a.s.l.] |
| ASP | Aspect (norhteness): 1-8; 1 - southwest (warmest), 8 - northeast (coldes) |
| SLP | Slope |
| EXP | Exposure: 0 - valley, 2 - lower slope, 4 - middle slope, 6 - upper slope, 8 - ridge, 10 - peak |
| CH | Canopy height [m] |
| GC | Ground cover |
| HC | Herb cover |
| SC | Shrub cover |
| T2C | Secondary tree cover |
| T1C | Canopy cover |
| TFV | Total foliage volume |
| FHD | Foliage height diversity index |
| CP | Conifer percentage |
| TD | Tree density |
| MDB | Mean tree DBH |
| SDDB | Standard deviation of tree DBH |
| TBA | Tree basal area |
| TSD | Tree species diversity |
Data for download
| File name | File type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ybirds.xlsx | Excel file | Contains species × sample matrix, environmental variables, explanation of species abbreviations and metadata |
| ybirds_spe.txt | tab-delimited txt format | Sample × species matrix (50 samples in rows, 59 species in columns) |
| ybirds_env.txt | tab-delimited txt format | Sample × env. variables matrix (50 samples in rows, 20 env. variables in columns) |
| ybirds_biomass.txt | tab-delimited txt format | Species × trait data (biomass of each species in g, from Supplementary materials in Ding et al. 2005) |
Compositional and environmental data (for all species)
ybirds.spe <- read.delim ('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zdealveindy/anadat-r/master/data/ybirds_spe.txt', row.names = 1)
ybirds.env <- read.delim ('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zdealveindy/anadat-r/master/data/ybirds_env.txt', row.names = 1)
ybirds.biomass <- read.delim ('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zdealveindy/anadat-r/master/data/ybirds_biomass.txt', row.names = 1)
References
- Ding, T.-S. (1993) Avian community ecology of mature forests in Mt. Yushan. Master Thesis, National Taiwan University, Taiwan (pdf)
- Ding, T.-S., Yuan, H.-W., Geng, S., Lin, Y.-S. & Lee, P.-F. (2005) Energy flux, body size and density in relation to bird species richness along an elevational gradient in Taiwan. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 14: 299-306. (pdf)