Suitability-space species trait dataset for priority invasive alien plants (Ailanthus altissima; Acer negundo) in the Danubian riparian corridor

Description
Woody invasive alien plant species (IAS) can be characterised by their realised suitability niche derived from modelled associations between occurrences and environmental gradients. This dataset serves as a species trait database in the form of model-derived “suitability-space traits” (predictor–suitability association signatures), together with harmonised 1-km predictors, domain tables, and scenario-specific normalised suitability surfaces for the Danubian riparian corridor. This enables users to fit alternative SDM model families, quantify predictor–suitability associations (“species suitability-space traits”), assess transferability across domains, and test bias-correction strategies using accessibility-linked predictors.

The release contains: (1) an AOI polygon (Danubian riparian corridor extent); (2) screened environmental predictors aligned to a common 1-km grid in ETRS89-LAEA (EPSG:3035), provided as transformed (where relevant) and z-standardised rasters (mean 0, SD 1) with the scaling table; (3) species-specific occurrence bundles (Ailanthus altissima; Acer negundo) with three 1-km aggregated domain tables: Danube calibration data using a target-group background (TGB) design (presence vs TGB pseudoabsence; includes spatial CV fold IDs), and two independent evaluation domains (Romania and Serbia) with 1-km presence/absence tables. All tables include a stable 1-km cell identifier (cell_id). (4) Scenario-specific PN suitability GeoTIFFs (Figs. S1–S8): each raster is probability-like normalised to sum to 1 within the Danube AOI.

PN GeoTIFF naming template
PN_{species}_{scenario}_1km_EPSG3035.tif, where species ∈ {Ailanthus_altissima, Acer_negundo} and scenario ∈ {S1_baseline, S2_bias_aware, S3_romania, S4_serbia_riparian}.

Primary occurrence sources (Danube calibration; opportunistic citizen science)
GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility; aggregated backbone and publisher feeds): https://www.gbif.org

iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org

Observation.org: https://observation.org

Pl@ntNet: https://plantnet.org

NABU|naturgucker: https://www.naturgucker.de
; https://www.nabu.de

External-domain evaluation data sources
Romania: Anastasiu, P. et al. (2024). Alien plant species distribution in Romania… Biodiversity Data Journal, 12, e119539. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.12.e119539

Serbia: Anđelković, A. A. et al. (2022). Plant invasions in riparian areas… NeoBiota, 71, 23–48. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.71.69716

This dataset accompanies the manuscript by Halabuk et al., “From citizen science records to invasive plant indicators: multi-domain evaluation and scenario-based model selection for the Danube corridor”.

Acknowledgement
Funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I01-03-V04-00005.