DOI: 10.5061/dryad.12jm63z5f
title: Data from: Neonicotinoids impact all aspects of bird life: A meta-analysis

description: Worldwide, bird populations are declining dramatically. This is especially
 the case in intensely used agricultural areas where the application of
 neonicotinoid insecticides is thought to – unintendedly – cause a cascade
 of negative impacts throughout food webs. Additionally, there could be
 direct (sub-) lethal impacts of neonicotinoids on birds, but to date there
 is no comprehensive quantitative assessment to confirm or rule out this
 possibility. Therefore, we use a meta-analytical approach synthesizing
 1612 effect sizes from 49 studies, and show that neonicotinoids
 consistently harm bird health, behavior, reproduction, and survival. Thus,
 in addition to reduced food availability, the negative direct effects of
 exposure to neonicotinoids likely contribute to bird population declines
 globally. Our outcomes are pivotal to consider in future risk assessments
 and pesticide policy: despite localized bans, the metabolites and residues
 of neonicotinoids remain present in the environment and in birds and will
 thus have long-lasting direct effects on both the individual and the
 population level.
description: # Data from: Neonicotinoids impact all aspects of bird life: A
 meta-analysis
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12jm63z5f](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12jm63z5f) With a systematic approach following the PRISMA and PECO framework, we synthesized 1612 effect sizes from 49 studies in a multivariate meta-analytical model, and show that neonicotinoids consistently harm bird health, behavior, reproduction, and survival. ### Description of the data and file structure **Supporting materials for this manuscript include the following:** * **Raw Data file (neonic_alldata_effectsizes_20240909.xlsx)** Excel file containing all raw extracted data from included studies, and their derived effect sizes. Other information included in this file describes the grouped performance type (i.e., whether behaviour, health, reproduction or survival was affected) , the exact outcome variable measured, the neonicotinoid (colour differentiation) type used (e.g., acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, thiamethoxam), bird species, dosage, and time. In the file there is an exact description of what each column contains, that is found under the tab "meta_data".  Misisng data: n/a * **Direction of Effects file (neonic_directioneffects_20240909.xlsx**) Excel file explaining the direction of each of the found effects: the effect sizes were computed in such a way that a negative value is always indicative of an adverse effect of exposure to a neonicotinoid compared to the control, while a positive value indicates a positive effect following exposure. For each effect there is an explanation for the direction and also in which paper/reference this direction and effect is discussed.  In the file there is an exact description of what each column contains, that is found under the tab "meta_data".  * **Paper Selection Process file (neonic_paperselection_20240909.xlsx)** Excel file containing the full list of articles found, the corresponding search query, and the paper selection (colour differentiation) process following the PRISMA scheme. In the file there is an exact description of what each column contains, that is found under the tab "meta_data". * **R script (neonic_rcode_ma_20240909.r)** R script containing code to conduct all meta-analyses including the packages needed.  * **Phylogenetic tree (Meta_species.nex)** Nexus file containing the phylogenetic tree of the bird species included in the analysis. This file is needed to perform the statistical analysis in R.  ### Code/software R (version 4.2.2) was used to run all analyses. The list of required packages is found in the first lines of the script.