GBIF-mediated plant occurrence data from South American Lomas ecosystems

This dataset contains GBIF-mediated occurrence records for 125 plant species associated with South American Lomas ecosystems along the arid coast of Peru. The Lomas are fog-dependent desert ecosystems that act as key refuges for biodiversity but are increasingly threatened by climate change and urban expansion.

Occurrence data were obtained between 23 and 29 January 2023 using the R package spocc to query GBIF and related aggregators via the GBIF occurrence search API. For each species, raw records were saved in species-specific CSV files and include scientific name, geographic coordinates, year, basis of record, coordinate uncertainty (when available), and the GBIF dataset key identifying the original data source. No additional cleaning or filtering (e.g. removal of spatial outliers, temporal limits, or duplicate records) was applied to the files in this repository; they represent the unaltered downloads used as input for subsequent data cleaning and species distribution modelling.

These data support a study projecting future habitat suitability for Lomas plant species under two climate scenarios (SSP1-2.6 and SSP3-7.0), with a focus on differences between endemic vs. non-endemic species and along elevational gradients.