Integrating specimen and citizen science data reveals climatic niche expansion and shifts of naturalized plants in China.

This study examines the climatic niche dynamics of naturalized plants in China, emphasizing how incomplete species distribution data from digitized herbarium specimens and associated observation records accessible through global data portals (e.g. the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF) influence the estimation of niche sizes and shifts during species migration and naturalization. We compared the climatic niche sizes and shifts of naturalized plants using two datasets: one based solely on GBIF and the other integrating digitally available records retrieved from local Chinese sources. We also analyzed niche mismatches to predict ecological niche changes and assess their relationship with climatic adaptability. The integration of locally mobilized digital datasets significantly improved niche size estimates and revealed more pronounced niche shifts than inferred from GBIF data alone. These shifts were mainly driven by temperature and seasonality gradients. The use of GBIF-only data underestimated the climatic space occupied by naturalized plants, particularly in southern China. Our findings highlight the need for global data providers to integrate, whenever possible, local biodiversity records to better understand the climatic resilience and expansion potential of naturalized species. Such integration is crucial for accurately predicting their future distributions and ecological impacts in new environments.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  New Phytologist

• Publication date

  2025-10-21

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1111/nph.70680PMID 41117354
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Spatially nested species distribution models (N‐SDM): An effective tool to overcome niche truncation for more robust inference and projections

  2025cited by this paper
• A comprehensive county‐level distribution database of alien and invasive plants in China

  2025cited by this paper
• Beyond spatial bias: understanding the colonial legacies and contemporary social forces shaping biodiversity data

  2025cited by this paper
• Navigating ecological novelty towards planetary stewardship: challenges and opportunities in biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere

  2024cited by this paper
• Records of urban occurrences expand estimates of the climate niches in tree species

  2024cited by this paper
• Invading plants remain undetected in a lag phase while they explore suitable climates

  2024cited by this paper
• Deterministic responses of biodiversity to climate change through exotic species invasions

  2024cited by this paper
• FlowerMate 2.0: Identifying plants in China with artificial intelligence

  2024cited by this paper
• Spatial patterns and hotspots of plant invasion in China

  2023cited by this paper
• Niche unfilling dominates the naturalization of species from intercontinentally disjunct genera

  2023cited by this paper
• Dynamics of the distribution of invasive alien plants (Asteraceae) in China under climate change.

  2023cited by this paper
• Different facets of the same niche: Integrating citizen science and scientific survey data to predict biological invasion risk under multiple global change drivers

  2023cited by this paper
• Citizen science can complement professional invasive plant surveys and improve estimates of suitable habitat

  2023cited by this paper
• rWCVP: a companion R package for the World Checklist of Vascular Plants.

  2023cited by this paper
• GBIF falls short of providing a representative picture of the global distribution of insects

  2023cited by this paper
• Seed dormancy in space and time: global distribution, paleo- and present climatic drivers and evolutionary adaptations.

  2022cited by this paper
• Invasive alien plants in China: An update

  2022cited by this paper
• Niche width predicts extinction from climate change and vulnerability of tropical species

  2022cited by this paper
• A dataset on catalogue of alien plants in China

  2022cited by this paper
• The potential of semi-structured citizen science data as a supplement for conservation decision-making: Validating the performance of eBird against targeted avian monitoring efforts

  2022cited by this paper
• The World Checklist of Vascular Plants, a continuously updated resource for exploring global plant diversity

  2021cited by this paper
• Data integration methods to account for spatial niche truncation effects in regional projections of species distribution.

  2021cited by this paper
• Winter low temperature disturbance in the southern subtropics of China promotes the competitiveness of an invasive plant

  2021cited by this paper
• National assessments of species vulnerability to climate change strongly depend on selected data sources

  2021cited by this paper
• The global significance of biodiversity science in China: an overview

  2021cited by this paper
• Species data for understanding biodiversity dynamics: The what, where and when of species occurrence data collection

  2021cited by this paper
• Ecological effects of land-use change on two sides of the Hu Huanyong Line in China

  2021cited by this paper
• Alien, Naturalized and Invasive Plants in China

  2021cited by this paper
• Climatic niche shifts in introduced species.

  2021cited by this paper
• Dynamics of invasive alien plant species in China under climate change scenarios

  2021cited by this paper
• Challenges and Opportunities in Establishing China Infrastructure for Big Biodiversity Data

  2020cited by this paper
• China's conservation program on Plant Species with Extremely Small Populations (PSESP): Progress and perspectives

  2020cited by this paper
• No one-size-fits-all solution to clean GBIF

  2020cited by this paper
• A unifying framework for quantifying and comparing n-dimensional hypervolumes

  2020cited by this paper
• Most invasive species largely conserve their climatic niche

  2020cited by this paper
• Climate‐niche factor analysis: a spatial approach to quantifying species vulnerability to climate change

  2019cited by this paper
• CoordinateCleaner: Standardized cleaning of occurrence records from biological collection databases

  2019cited by this paper
• Integrating reproductive phenology in ecological niche models changed the predicted future ranges of a marine invader

  2019cited by this paper
• Research applications of primary biodiversity databases in the digital age

  2019cited by this paper
• Substantial declines in urban tree habitat predicted under climate change.

  2019cited by this paper
• Incomplete species lists derived from global and regional specimen‐record databases affect macroecological analyses: A case study on the vascular plants of China

  2018cited by this paper
• Naturalized distributions show that climatic disequilibrium is structured by niche size in pines ( Pinus L.)

  2018cited by this paper
• WorldClim 2: new 1‐km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas

  2017cited by this paper
• Accessible areas in ecological niche comparisons of invasive species: Recognized but still overlooked

  2017cited by this paper
• R Python, and Ruby clients for GBIF species occurrence data

  2017cited by this paper
• Patterns and drivers of zoogeographical regions of terrestrial vertebrates in China

  2017cited by this paper
• A quantitative synthesis of the importance of variables used in MaxEnt species distribution models

  2017cited by this paper
• Climatic niche shifts are common in introduced plants

  2017cited by this paper
• Population distribution and urbanization on both sides of the Hu Huanyong Line: Answering the Premier’s question

  2016cited by this paper
• Global threats from invasive alien species in the twenty-first century and national response capacities

  2016cited by this paper
• Multidimensional biases, gaps and uncertainties in global plant occurrence information.

  2016cited by this paper
• Concluding Remarks

  2015cited by this paper
• Effect of climate change on seasonal monsoon in Asia and its impact on the variability of monsoon rainfall in Southeast Asia

  2015cited by this paper
• Crossing Frontiers in Tackling Pathways of Biological Invasions

  2015cited by this paper
• Estimating species diversity and distribution in the era of Big Data: to what extent can we trust public databases?

  2015cited by this paper
• Climatic niche shifts between species' native and naturalized ranges raise concern for ecological forecasts during invasions and climate change

  2014cited by this paper
• The GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit: Facilitating the Efficient Publishing of Biodiversity Data on the Internet

  2014cited by this paper
• Unifying niche shift studies: insights from biological invasions.

  2014cited by this paper
• The n‐dimensional hypervolume

  2014cited by this paper
• Evolutionary responses to global change: lessons from invasive species.

  2014cited by this paper
• How Does Climate Influence Speciation?

  2013cited by this paper
• Disequilibrium vegetation dynamics under future climate change.

  2013cited by this paper
• Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard

  2012cited by this paper
• Climatic Niche Shifts Are Rare Among Terrestrial Plant Invaders

  2012cited by this paper
• Bioclimatic predictors for supporting ecological applications in the conterminous United States

  2012cited by this paper
• Climate change threatens European conservation areas

  2011cited by this paper
• Naturalization of alien plants in China

  2011cited by this paper
• Niche conservatism as an emerging principle in ecology and conservation biology.

  2010cited by this paper
• Patterns of plant invasions in China: Taxonomic, biogeographic, climatic approaches and anthropogenic effects

  2010cited by this paper
• Temperature dependence, spatial scale, and tree species diversity in eastern Asia and North America

  2009cited by this paper
• Predicting global change impacts on plant species' distributions: Future challenges

  2008cited by this paper
• Evidence of climatic niche shift during biological invasion.

  2007cited by this paper
• Beyond control : wider implications for the management of biological invasions

  2006cited by this paper
• Niche Conservatism: Integrating Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation Biology

  2005cited by this paper
• RELATING PLANT TRAITS AND SPECIES DISTRIBUTIONS ALONG BIOCLIMATIC GRADIENTS FOR 88 LEUCADENDRON TAXA

  2004cited by this paper
• Range shifts and adaptive responses to Quaternary climate change.

  2001cited by this paper
• Naturalization and invasion of alien plants: concepts and definitions

  2000cited by this paper
• The Evolution of Ecological Specialization

  1988cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.