Dataset on audio records of animals from the northeast Andes of Colombia I: The bird sounds of Boyacá Department

Abstract This dataset is the first effort to combine the audio biodiversity of a taxonomic group in a selected location, the Boyaca department in Colombia. We conducted a detailed review of the sound recordings for birds from the Boyaca department within three repositories, the environmental sound collection of the Humboldt Institute, the Macaulay Library of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the xeno-canto platform of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. We selected recordings that were identified up to species and have the complete metadata information. Using latitude and longitude information, we assigned each recording to one of the three regions and one of the 12 biotic units reported for Boyaca. We reported a total of 2321 recordings belonging to the Andean region (1892), Orinoquian region (425), and Carare-Lebrija-Nechi-Sinu (4). The sounds of Boyaca birds have been sampled for approximately three decades, with two peaks of activity in early 2000’s and 2018. We also included a map with the distribution of biotic units and sound recordings of our dataset. This dataset can be used to extract acoustic traits to test hypotheses of turnover in the acoustic space or traits by species, or to compare acoustic traits between species. It can also allow decision-makers to support biodiversity-based economies such as avitourism.