Acoustic monitoring data of avian species inside and outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident

Large-scale land abandonment and reconstruction activity has altered the ecosystem structure in the evacuation area for the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident in 2011. Despite social concerns about changes in the avian assemblages that occurred after the accident, publicly accessible data are quite limited. We engaged in acoustic monitoring of birds using digital voice recorders from 2014 in and around the Fukushima evacuation zone. All monitoring sites were located within schoolyards (including those that had been converted to community centers) to examine the bird assemblages in the urban and rural landscapes that were heavily altered by land abandonment due to the nuclear plant accident. A digital voice recorder was installed at each monitoring site during May–July, and we recorded 20 minutes a day using timer-recording mode. We divided the audio data into 1-minute segments and identified species occurred in sampled segments by experts. These data represent the presence-absence records from 52 sites monitored in 2014, 57 sites monitored in 2015, 54 sites monitored in 2016, 57 sites monitored in 2017, 56 sites monitored in 2018, 52 sites monitored in 2019 and 50 sites monitored in 2020. We identified the species for 7,222 segments in total and 68 species occurred in 2014, 8,017 segments in total and 64 species occurred in 2015, 5,289 segments in total and 58 species occurred in 2016, 4,092 segments in total and 60 species occurred in 2017, 4,200 segments in total and 65 species occurred in 2018, 4,000 segments in total and 59 species occurred in 2019 and 3,900 segments in total and 56 species occurred in 2020. We are continuing to monitor and intend to update the dataset with new observations hereafter. Our dataset will help people to recognize the status and dynamics of avian assemblage inside the evacuation zone, and will contribute to promote open science in avian ecological studies.