Global ungulate migration hotspot raster (50 km resolution) derived from IUCN red list spatial data

This dataset provides a global 50 × 50 km equal-area raster of mammal species richness derived from IUCN Red List spatial distribution data. Species distribution polygons from the IUCN Red List terrestrial mammals only dataset (Version 2025-2) were classified according to migration status (migratory, non-migratory, and migration-unknown) based on synthesis of four key literature sources, peer-reviewed movement ecology publications, GPS/telemetry studies, and expert range descriptions. All polygons were reprojected to a global equal-area Mollweide projection (EPSG:54009) to ensure accurate area representation and rasterised to a standardized 50 × 50 km grid.

Species richness was calculated per grid cell by counting the number of unique species whose distribution ranges intersected each grid cell. Separate richness layers were generated for migratory, non-migratory, and migration-unknown species, enabling spatial comparison of migration-associated biodiversity patterns. Marine areas and spatial artefacts were removed during preprocessing to restrict analyses to terrestrial mammal distributions.

The resulting GeoTIFF rasters represents a derived product based on IUCN Red List spatial data and must be used in accordance with IUCN Terms of Use.