Data from: A global database of butterfly species native distributions

Butterflies represent a diverse group of insects, playing key ecosystem
roles such as pollination and their larval form in herbivory. Despite
their importance, comprehensive global distribution data for butterfly
species is lacking. This lack of comprehensive global data has hindered
many large-scale questions in ecology, evolutionary biology, and
conservation at regional and global scales. Here, I use an integrative
workflow that combines occurrence records, alpha hull polygons, species’
dispersal capacity, natural habitat and environmental variables within a
framework of species distribution models to generate species-level native
distributions for butterflies at a global scale in contemporary period.
The database releases native range maps for 10,372 extant species of
butterflies at a spatial grain resolution of 5 arcmin (~10 km). This
database has the potential to allow unprecedented large-scale analyses in
ecology, biogeography, and conservation of butterflies. The maps are
available in the WGS84 coordinate reference system (EPSG:4326 code) and
stored as vector polygons in GEOPACKAGE format for maximum compression,
allowing easy data manipulation using a standard computer. I additionally
provide each species’ spatial raster. All maps and R scripts are open
access and available for download at Dryad, and are guided by FAIR
(Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principle. By
making this data available to the scientific community, I aim to advance
the sharing of biological data to stimulate more comprehensive research in
ecology, biogeography, and conservation of butterflies.