Data from: Species traits mediate the abundant-center patterns in ground-dwelling mammal and bird species in China

This dataset contains the data supporting the findings of the study titled “Species traits mediate the abundant-centre patterns in ground-dwelling mammals and birds of China.” The abundance centre hypothesis (ACH) posits that species abundance peaks at their distribution centres; however, empirical evidence testing the ACH has yielded mixed results. To assess the generality of the ACH and explore whether species traits mediate distance–abundance relationships, we compiled relative abundance indices (RAI) estimates from 196 camera trap studies conducted across China between 2008-2023. The dataset contains 2,558 RAI estimates of 81 ground-dwelling species (56 mammals and 25 birds). Species traits were also compiled from different datasets to test whether species traits mediate distance–abundance relationships.