DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0gb5mkm9h
title: Landscape structure and site characteristics influence whether the northern house martin Delichon urbicum occupies artificial nests

description: Artificial nest sites can support populations of endangered species when
 they are correctly installed. Here we analysed the characteristics and
 conditions that determined whether the northern house martin Delichon
 urbicum occupied more than 300 artificial nests around the city of
 Münster, Germany. We found that artificial nest occupation rates were
 influenced by various environmental and temporal factors. Positive
 influences included longer time since installation and, to a lesser
 extent, the number of artificial nests at the same site. Negative impacts
 were observed from higher proportions of sealed surface cover in the
 surrounding area and, to a lesser extent, southward exposure. The distance
 to the nearest water body and the number of occupied natural nests showed
 no significant effect. We compared our results with descriptive evidence
 from the grey literature and published reports, and we give
 recommendations for installing artificial house martin nests for
 conservation practitioners. Future studies should also investigate the
 potential negative effects of “dirt boards” below the nests and of gaps
 between the roof and the artificial nests.
description: # Landscape structure and site characteristics influence whether the
 northern house martin Delichon urbicum occupies artificial nests
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0gb5mkm9h
 ](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0gb5mkm9h) ## Description of the data and
 file structure Artificial nest sites can support populations of endangered
 species when they are correctly installed. Here we analysed the
 characteristics and conditions that determined whether the northern house
 martin occupied artificial nests.  ### Files and variables ### File:
 Mehlschwalben\_neu.csv **Description:** Table for the analyis in R. Empty
 rows in the CSV file are not missing values but were added for importing
 into R. ##### Variables * ID: Letter indicates location. Number means
 which nest at this location. * Besetzt: 0 = not occupied, 1 = occupied *
 Anzahl: How many artificial nests are in one place * Gebaeudetyp: Building
 type, H= residental houses, S= sheds where livestock were kept, T= barns,
 TU= swallow towers, W= residental blocks * Fassadentyp: Façade type, H=
 wooden facades, B= brick facades, R= rough facades * Exposition:
 Exposition in degrees° * NNester : 0= no natural nests existing, 1=
 natural nests existing in the surrounding * Kotbrett: 0= dirt board not
 present, 1= dirt board present * aVoegel: 0= no other birds are using it,
 1= other birds than house martins are using artifical nest * Zeitpunkt:
 Time since installation, 0 = before the breeding season of the same year,
 1 = before the breeding season of the year before, and so on *
 Tierhaltung: Presence of livestock (cows, horses, sheep, chickens or
 pigs), 0= no presence, 1= presence of livestock * Gewaesser: Distance to
 water bodies in %, 100%= is the furthest away  * Gewaesser.1: Distance to
 water bodies in meter. * Versiegelt: Degree of sealing, 100%= everything
 is sealed * Standort: Letter indicates location. * Dachluecke: Gap between
 nest and roof, 0= no gap, 1= a gap was present between the nest and the
 roof * Besetzte.Nnester: Occupied natural nests, 0= no occupied natural
 nests in the surrounding, 1= occupied natural nests present * Besetzte
 Natuerliche Nester Anzahl: Number of occupied natural nests per location.
 * Anzahl alle natuerlichen Nester (mit herabgefallenen Nestern): Number of
 all natural nests with fallen nests. * Anzahl intakten natuerliche Nester:
 Number of intact natural nests. #### File: model\_brms.R
 **Description:** Bayesian multilevel model and plot generation. #### File:
 start.R **Description:** Loading and preparing the data for analysis. ####
 File: coefficients\_plot\_new\.png **Description:** Estimated coefficients
 for each predictor variable. Black points represent the mean for each
 variable. The thin black line is the 95 % credible interval, and the thick
 black line is the 80 % credible interval. If the 95 % credible interval
 lies completely to the left of 0 (e.g., for sealed surface cover), this
 indicates a strong negative effect of the variable on the occupancy of an
 artificial nest. The coloured area represents the full posterior
 distribution of the coefficient estimates for each variable. #### File:
 violins.png **Description:** Violin plots showing the density of the six
 independent variables for the occupancy of artificial nests. ##
 Code/software Excel, R  library(brms) library(performance)
 library(ggplot2) library(viridis) library(dplyr) library(tidybayes) ##
 Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * DOI:
 [10.22541/au.170090315.52136290/v1](https://doi.org/10.22541/au.170090315.52136290/v1)