Data and code for "Large Conservation Gaps Remain for China's Biocrusts: A Roadmap to 30×30"

This dataset accompanies the manuscript: Wei Y., Ju M., Maestre F.T., Bu C., Chen N., Zhang Y., Zou Y. (2026).Large Conservation Gaps Remain for China's Biocrusts: A Roadmap to30×30. Nature Communications (under review). Repository contents The archive contains two components: 1. Harmonized 24-variable 1 km predictor raster stack(data/predictor_stack/) predictor_stack_23variables_1km.tif — a single 23-band GeoTIFF(~609 MB) covering mainland China at 1 km resolution (WGS84),holding terrain (elevation, slope, aspect), climate (MTCO, MTWA,DI, GP), vegetation (type, NDVI_max), land-cover (CLCD class), andsoil (12 variables from bulk density to soil texture) predictors.hii_china_2000_2022_1km.tif — the 24th predictor (HumanFootprint Index 2000–2018), kept as a separate single-bandGeoTIFF (~44 MB).PREDICTOR_MANIFEST.md — full band-to-variable mapping, integerencoding details, and source DOIs for every layer.All rasters share a common 1 km grid in the WGS84 geographiccoordinate system. 2. Thirteen R analysis scripts (code/) Scripts numbered 01–09c implement the full analytical pipeline:species distribution modelling (MaxEnt with ENMeval-tunedregularization), Random Forest prediction of three biocrustfunctional traits (coverage, thickness, chlorophyll a content)with per-pixel cross-validation, PCA-derived Hotspot Index (HSI),Climate × Human-pressure Vulnerability Index (VI), ConservationPriority synthesis (3 × 3 matrix, 5-level surface), andRepresentativeness Gap analysis against China's protected-areanetwork. Running the scripts in order reproduces all main-textfigures and principal results tables.