Data from: Area of habitat maps and validated occurrences for neotropical birds of conservation concern

Understanding species distributions is essential for advancing bird conservation, especially in the rapidly changing landscapes of the Neotropics, where habitat loss and degradation are accelerating. Area of Habitat (AOH) maps offer valuable spatial tools for illustrating species distributions by highlighting potentially suitable habitats within their geographic range. In this study, we generated AOH maps for 713 neotropical bird species of conservation concern, which includes species listed as globally or nationally threatened, endemic, or with restricted ranges. Using primary biodiversity data and a structured geospatial workflow, we refined approximately 2.5 million occurrence records through a flagging process and validated 53,362 records manually. This comprehensive effort resulted in high-precision AOH maps, with altitude-adjusted Extent of Occurrence (EOO-DEM) and Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) models performing better than random expectations for 99.14% and 95.28% of the species, respectively. The validated occurrences and AOH maps produced in this study have wide-ranging applications, providing a valuable basis for the development of new species distribution models and for evaluating species’ natural history, extinction risk, and habitat threats. They also support the identification of priority areas for strategic conservation investments. Importantly, these maps played a key role in systematic conservation planning analyses for the Conserva Aves initiative, which is facilitating the creation of more than 80 new protected areas across Latin America, safeguarding 2 million hectares and improving the management of an additional 2 million hectares (https://conservaves.redlac.org/(opens in new window)).