Occurrence Metrics for Invasive Alien Species of Union Concern in EU27: A 10 km prototype using GBIF occurrence cubes

This dataset includes GBIF occurrences of species listed under Regulation (EU) 1143/2014 on invasive alien species (IAS). The IAS list, adopted in 2016 and updated in 2017, 2019, and 2022, currently includes 88 species subject to strict environmental restrictions.

For this study, we used the most recent IAS list from the European Topic Centre on Biodiversity and Ecosystems (ETC BE) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) as of June 2024. We matched these species' scientific names with the GBIF backbone taxonomy to obtain the accepted GBIF names and species keys.

Using the GBIF API in R, we generated CSV cubes of species occurrences, applying the EEA spatial grid at a 10 km resolution. Monthly occurrence data were collected for 77 species, and the following metrics were calculated for each grid cell in the cube:
• Total number of occurrences
• Earliest date of occurrences
• Latest date of occurrences
• Basis of record for the earliest date of occurrences
• Basis of record for the latest date of occurrences

This dataset was developed by the Biodiversity Building Blocks for Policy (B3) project and was funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme (ID No 101059592).