Area of Habitat Maps for National Key Protected Wildlife in China (1985-2022)

Area of Habitat (AOH) maps show species distribution patterns, and they are vital for predicting species' survival, assessing species habitat loss or restoration, and developing biodiversity conservation strategies. AOH maps are produced by extracting suitable elevation ranges and habitat types from species’ geographic range maps. AOH reduces errors in geographic range maps. National Key Protected Wildlife are species protected by Chinese law, which are important for maintaining China's biodiversity and ecological security. We produced AOH maps for 720 terrestrial National Key Protected Wildlife, covering the years 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2022. The maps have a resolution of 30 m. We independently validated the AOH maps. On average, AOH maps for all validated species show a mean point and model prevalence of 0.84 ± 0.20 SD and 0.49 ± 0.27 SD, with 97.03% of the species' AOH maps perform better than random. Additionally, all species' AOH maps are spatially overlaid to generate a species richness map, representing the number of species at each grid of 30×30m.All maps are stored in a file geodatabase (.gdb) format, which is accessible and operable using ArcGIS or ArcGIS Pro. The map values are set to 1 for the AOH area and Null for the background. Each species' AOH map is named using its scientific name followed by the year (e.g., Ailuropoda_melanoleuca_2020). The nine AOH maps for the same species, corresponding to nine time points, are stored in a single file geodatabase named using the species' scientific name and Chinese name. The values in the species richness maps represent the number of species at each grid, and the maps are named using the format “Richness_All/Class1/Class2_year”. There are also three information tables in the database. The Species AOH information table records the geographic range, habitat, and elevation preference information and data sources for each species. The Translation table records the mapping of each terrestrial habitat type of IUCN habitat classification scheme to the land cover type of GLC_FCS30D.The AOH Validation table records the validation results (Point prevalence and Model prevalence) for each AOH maps.In this version we have made some new revisions and refinements。We have removed the AOH maps of strictly marine species from the database. And we have strictly distinguishing between water body habitat types and wetland habitat types for all relevant species.