Abstract
Shorebirds (part of the order Charadriiformes) have a global distribution and exhibit remarkable variation in ecological and behavioural traits that are pertinent to many core questions in the fields of evolutionary ecology and conservation biology. Shorebirds are also relatively convenient to study in the wild as they are ground nesting and often occupy open habitats that are tractable to monitor. Here we present a database documenting the reproductive ecology of 1,647 individually marked snowy plovers (Charadrius nivosus) monitored between 2006 and 2016 at Bahía de Ceuta (23°54N, 106°57W) – an important breeding site in north-western Mexico. The database encompasses various morphological, behavioural, and fitness-related traits of males and females along with spatial and temporal population dynamics. This open resource will serve as an important data repository for addressing overarching questions in avian ecology and wetland conservation during an era of big data and global collaborative science.
Highlights
Longitudinal data on individuals living in the wild represent the gold standard for research in organismal ecology, as subjects are sampled repeatedly over multiple stages of their life-history while being exposed to the natural evolutionary pressures of their native environments[1]
Raw longitudinal field data from wild populations are rarely made open to the public6 – limiting the transparency and reproducibility of published research methods and results in evolutionary ecology
Apart from being a public icon of avian conservation, snowy plovers have increasingly captured the spotlight for their intriguing ecology and life-history. Their unusual biology features a rare breeding behaviour characterized by highly dispersive polyandry and male-biased uniparental care[10,11]. In this data descriptor we present CeutaOPEN – an open-access database containing the raw data from our fieldwork between 2006 and 2016 monitoring a breeding population of snowy plovers at Bahía de Ceuta, a subtropical lagoon on the coastal plain of north-western Mexico (23°54′N, 106°57′W)
Summary
Longitudinal data on individuals living in the wild represent the gold standard for research in organismal ecology, as subjects are sampled repeatedly over multiple stages of their life-history while being exposed to the natural evolutionary pressures of their native environments[1]. Apart from being a public icon of avian conservation, snowy plovers have increasingly captured the spotlight for their intriguing ecology and life-history Their unusual biology features a rare breeding behaviour characterized by highly dispersive polyandry and male-biased uniparental care[10,11]. In this data descriptor we present CeutaOPEN – an open-access database containing the raw data from our fieldwork between 2006 and 2016 monitoring a breeding population of snowy plovers at Bahía de Ceuta, a subtropical lagoon on the coastal plain of north-western Mexico (23°54′N, 106°57′W). We describe our field methods for collecting the observations presented in the database, we summarize the contents of the database, and we provide a code-based tutorial demonstrating how to import and query the database within the R environment and conduct, for example, a simple analytical workflow to investigate sex-specific ontogeny
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
