Urban vertebrate assemblages offer valuable insights into biodiversity patterns under intense anthropogenic pressure, yet multi-taxon datasets collected using standardized protocols across cities and along an urban–rural gradients remain scarce. With this resource, we provide the NBFC (National Biodiversity Future Centre) vertebrate dataset, a standardized and comprehensive dataset of vertebrate occurrence and abundance data across six Italian cities (Turin, Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Campobasso), encompassing diverse urban configurations and covering a broad range of latitudinal and climatic conditions across Italy. Surveys were conducted within a stratified 1×1 km grid design representing gradients of green space extent and fragmentation, allowing robust comparisons across cities (based on the EEA spatial grid, see Dondina et al. 2025). Provided coordinates are grid centroids. We surveyed a total of 202 grid cells, recording 117 bird species, 17 bat species, 15 medium- and large-sized mammal species, 16 small-sized mammal species, and 10 reptile species. Data were collected between 2023 and 2025 following standardized protocols tailored to each taxon and verified by experts. The dataset provides a unique, spatially replicated, and methodologically integrated resource to investigate ecological responses to urbanization, cross-taxon biodiversity patterns, and the effects of landscape structure, land-use, and socioeconomic gradients on vertebrate communities across the Italian peninsula. Details of sampling protocols and examples of potential uses of the data are provided in the following two associated resources: Alba R, Ancillotto L, Assandri G, Bani L, Bajno L, Caprio E, Chamberlain D, Ilahiane L, Limonciello L, Marcolin F, Mori E, Orioli V, Rubolini R, Russo V, Viviano A, Dondina O, Loy A (2026) A comprehensive dataset for assessing vertebrate diversity in Italian urban ecosystems. DOI: XXXXXXAlba R, Limonciello L (2026) A comprehensive dataset for assessing vertebrate diversity in Italian urban ecosystems. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18837385AcknowledgementsThe generation of this resource was funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.4 - Call for tender No. 3138 of 16 December 2021, rectified by Decree n.3175 of 18 December 2021 of Italian Ministry of University and Research funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU; Award Number: Project code CN_00000033, Concession Decree No. 1034 of 17 June 2022 adopted by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, CUP D13C22001350001, Project title “National Biodiversity Future Center - NBFC”.
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables.
The core data table contains 9,178 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Dipartimento di Scienze e Politiche Ambientali, Università degli Studi di Milano.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
This resource has not been registered with GBIF
Occurrence; Biodiversity; Vertebrates; Urban areas; Observation
six Italian cities (Turin, Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Campobasso)
| Bounding Coordinates |
South West [40.805, 7.569], North East [45.573, 14.708] |
| Start Date / End Date |
2023-01-03 / 2025-10-13 |
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7548-8173