County Distribution Dataset of vascular Plants in Northeast China

Northeast China has the most abundant vegetation resources such as forest, wetland and grassland. It is also a typical biodiversity convergence area in the same latitude region of the world. But data on species distribution are scarce. The establishment of vascular plant datasets in Northeast China is of great significance for regional species cataloging, in situ and exsitu conservation of biodiversity, etc. Based on the data of vascular plant species distribution in Northeast China, the Maxent model was used to predict the current and potential geographical distribution of 2600 vascular plant species in the surveyed area under the current climate conditions and the climate data of two future climate scenarios (RCP 8.5 and RCP 2.6) in CMIP5. The data collected from vascular plant sampling sites in northeast China (38°40 'to 53°30' N, 115°05 'to 135°02' E) contained 144 076 longitude and latitude records, with a total of 2600 species (including subspecific units). The potential distribution of 2600 vascular plant species under current climate conditions and RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5 scenarios in 2070 were obtained at county level in each administrative division of Northeast China after model simulation. This dataset contains four subsets, namely: (1) A dataset of the actual distribution of vascular plants in Northeast China, (2) Predicted distribution of vascular plants in Northeast China under current climatic conditions, (3) Potential distribution of vascular plants in Northeast China in 2070 under RCP 2.6 scenario and (4) Potential distribution of vascular plants in Northeast China in 2070 under RCP 8.5 scenario. The data is stored in .csv format. The total amount of data is 11.21 MB. This dataset provides a scientific basis for analyzing the distribution pattern of plant richness in Northeast China under climate change, determining the distribution of priority areas for conservation, and establishing a scientific and advanced construction and management system for protected areas.