Country, continental, subcontinental and subnational distributions used in the GlobalUsefulNativeTrees database

The GlobalUsefulNativeTrees (GlobUNT) database allows to select and filter native tree species from a global set of 14,014 useful tree species (Kindt et al. 2023). We used the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGS-RPD; Brummit 2001) to allocate countries listed by GlobalTreeSearch (https://tools.bgci.org/global_tree_search.php; Beech et al. 2017) to continents and subcontinents, and to differentiate subnational levels of countries that included more than one ‘botanical country’. Here the full list of countries, continents, subcontinents and subnational levels are provided, with annotations where we deviated from the WGS-RPD system. Borders for subnational levels can be inferred from maps (MAPS 1 - 17) shown at the end of the Brummit (2001) reference. These borders can also be seen in the TreeGOER Global Zones atlas (https://zenodo.org/records/12570754). In version 2025.06, extra columns were added for the ‘Countries’ sheet. These include hyperlinks to the worldometer and the ISO Online Browing Platform. Check this tutorial for the GlobUNT: https://campus.globallandscapesforum.org/book-page/globalusefulnativetreesglobunt References Kindt, R., Graudal, L., Lillesø, JP.B. et al. (2023). GlobalUsefulNativeTrees, a database documenting 14,014 tree species, supports synergies between biodiversity recovery and local livelihoods in landscape restoration. Sci Rep 13, 12640. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39552-1 Brummitt R.K. (with assistance from F. Pando, S. Hollis, N.A. Brummitt and others). 2001. World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases for Plant Sciences. https://github.com/tdwg/wgsrpd/blob/master/109-488-1-ED/2nd%20Edition/TDWG_geo2.pdf Beech, E., Rivers, M., Oldfield, S., & Smith, P.P. (2017). GlobalTreeSearch: the first complete global database of tree species and country distributions. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 36(5): 454-489. https://doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2017.1310049 Funding The development of this dataset was supported by the Darwin Initiative to project DAREX001 of Developing a Global Biodiversity Standard certification for tree-planting and restoration, by Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative through the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia to the Provision of Adequate Tree Seed Portfolio project in Ethiopia, by the Bezos Earth Fund to the Quality Tree Seed for Africa in Kenya and Rwanda project and by the German International Climate Initiative (IKI) to the regional tree seed programme on The Right Tree for the Right Place for the Right Purpose in Africa.