Data to create and evaluate distribution models for invasive species for different geographic extents

We developed habitat suitability models for invasive plant species selected by Department of Interior land management agencies. We applied the modeling workflow developed in Young et al. 2020 to species not included in the original case studies. Our methodology balanced trade-offs between developing highly customized models for a few species versus fitting non-specific and generic models for numerous species. We developed a national library of environmental variables known to physiologically limit plant distributions (Engelstad et al. 2022 Table S1: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263056) and relied on human input based on natural history knowledge to further narrow the variable set for each species before developing habitat [...]