Avian Physiological Variables and Traits for 1528 Bird Species

A meta-analysis dataset collating physiological and life history data for 1528 bird species. It includes body mass, basal and field metabolic rates, summit metabolic rate, and body temperatures, sourced from respirometry, calorimetry, and doubly-labelled water techniques. The dataset integrates functional and ecological trait data from the AVONET database and includes a phylogenetic tree for comparative analyses.

Use Cases

• Analyze scaling relationships between body mass and metabolic rates based on BMR, FMR, and Msum measurements.
• Investigate links between physiological variables and ecological traits based on foraging mode, trophic level, and habitat data from AVONET.
• Conduct phylogenetically informed analyses of body temperature variation using the provided nexus tree file.
• Model the influence of life history traits on avian energy budgets based on collated physiological measurements.

Strengths

• Data for 1528 species provides a broad taxonomic scope for analysis.
• Integrates primary physiological measurements with external ecological trait data from the AVONET database.
• Includes a phylogenetic tree file enabling robust comparative methods.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect publication or methodological bias inherent to meta-analyses.

Provenance

Source

Collated from multiple primary studies and the AVONET database.

Collection Method

Meta-analysis of published physiological measurements and integration of an external trait database.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-11 14:03:09

Geography

Global, based on the distribution of the included bird species.