World Bird Database: Species, Sites, and Endemic Bird Areas

BirdLife International's database covers global bird biodiversity. It holds information on approximately 10,000 bird species, over 8,000 Important Bird Areas, and 218 Endemic Bird Areas. The relational database, developed since 1994, contains over 250,000 records across more than 120 tables.

Use Cases

• Modeling species habitat suitability based on species distribution data.
• Analyzing conservation priorities based on Important Bird Area (IBA) and Endemic Bird Area (EBA) designations.
• Conducting biodiversity trend analysis using long-term species and site records.

Strengths

• Contains data on approximately 10,000 bird species, over 8,000 Important Bird Areas, and 218 Endemic Bird Areas.
• Relational database architecture with over 120 tables and 1,400 data fields.
• Certain tables hold in excess of 250,000 records, indicating substantial data volume.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count for the full dataset is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

BirdLife International

Collection Method

Compiled and managed by the BirdLife Partnership as a scientific information management tool.

Time Range

Development started in 1994; data are added continually.

Geography

Global