BioOverlap: A Global Database of Climatic Niche and Range Overlap for Terrestrial and Marine Species

The BioOverlap database provides standardized measures of climatic niche overlap and geographic range overlap for over 16,000 terrestrial and marine species worldwide, spanning 20 major taxonomic groups, including amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles, plants, marine and freshwater fish, corals, and others. It is designed to support macroecological and biogeographical research by offering a large-scale, comparative framework to study species’ environmental distinctiveness and patterns of regional co-occurrence.
Niche overlap is calculated using the Jaccard index based on multivariate climatic data (19 WorldClim bioclimatic variables), while range overlap is derived from IUCN range maps. For each species pair, the database includes pairwise estimates of both niche and range overlap, alongside metadata such as taxonomic affiliation, niche centroid distances and niche breadth. Pairwise assessments are available considering all species within each realm (e.g., all_BioOverlap_terrestrial) but also considering only species within each taxonomic group (e.g., overlap_measures_Birds).
BioOverlap is intended as a resource for ecologists, evolutionary biologists, conservation scientists, and data modelers working on topics such as community assembly, biodiversity change, extinction risk, niche evolution, and species coexistence.