Disturbance, energy, climate partitions, cultivars and species habitat data for the Colorado Plateau and environs

These data were compiled to support and inform the Bureau of Land Management’s Colorado Plateau Native Plant Program and to guide future management action when selecting regions to collect and increase seed for native plant materials development. The objective of our study was to develop geospatial datasets to aid land managers and restoration practitioners in identifying areas that will need to be restored in the future (currently disturbed) as well as areas to source new native plant materials for propagation with increased climate similarity to these areas across the Colorado Plateau, Arizona/New Mexico Mountains, and Arizona/New Mexico Plateaus. These data represent species distribution models for 12 high priority restoration species on the Colorado Plateau and environs, source locations of commonly available germplasms for those 12 high priority restoration species, climatic suitability of those restoration species based on the source locations, areas disturbed by grazing, energy production, and wildfires, as well as climatic partitions within each species habitat to illustrate areas for new collections for grow out. This data was collected and analyzed electronically. Disturbance data was collected from the US Energy Information Administration, Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, and the National Interagency Fire Center. Species distribution models were created using species occurrence data sourced from SEINET, 19 bioclimatic variables sourced from the WorldClim historical dataset, and were created using MaxEnt software. Climate similarity (referred to as well suited habitat throughout) and climate partitioning models were created using the Seed Mapping Toolkit. This data can be used to investigate suitable habitat for priority restoration species, identify landscape level disturbances, identify suitability of currently available native plant materials (NPMs), and to prioritize locations for seed collection to fill gaps in existing native plant material suitability.