Artificial Hotspot Occurrence Inventory (AHOI)

Aim: Species occurrence records are essential to understanding Earth’s biodiversity and addressing global environmental issues, but do not always reflect actual locations of occurrence. Certain geographic coordinates are assigned repeatedly to thousands of observation/collection records. This may result from imperfect data management and georeferencing practices, and can greatly bias the inferred distribution of biodiversity and associated environmental conditions. Nonetheless, these ‘biodiverse’ coordinates are often overlooked in taxon-centric studies, as they are identifiable only in aggregate across taxa and datasets, and it is difficult to determine their true circumstance without in-depth, focused investigation. Here we assess highly recurring coordinates in biodiversity data to determine artificial hotspots of occurrences.
Location: Global
Taxon: Land plants, birds, mammals, insects
Methods: We identified highly recurring coordinates across plant, bird, insect, and mammal records...

研究目的：物种出现记录是解析地球生物多样性、应对全球环境议题的核心基础数据，但此类记录未必能真实反映物种的实际出现位置。大量观测与采集记录会被重复赋予相同的地理坐标，该现象可能源于不完善的数据管理流程与地理配准（georeferencing）操作，会显著干扰生物多样性及其关联环境条件的推断结果。尽管如此，这类看似生物多样性丰富的坐标在以类群为中心的研究中常被忽视——仅当跨类群、跨数据集进行聚合分析时才能识别此类坐标，且若无深入且针对性的调查，难以确定其真实成因。本研究对生物多样性数据中的高频重复坐标展开评估，以甄别人为造成的物种出现热点。
研究范围：全球
研究类群：陆生植物、鸟类、哺乳类、昆虫类
研究方法：本研究针对植物、鸟类、昆虫及哺乳类的相关记录，识别出高频重复的坐标……