Spatial bias in GBIF data has limited impact on plant climate niche properties in Europe

AimThe Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is the most prominent source of species occurrence data for modeling climate niches, but exhibits strong unevenness in its data coverage across different geographic regions. The impact of this spatial bias on the reliability of GBIF-based plant climate niches in Europe remains unexplored. This study aims to address this gap, and to investigate whether the targeted integration of additional atlas data can reduce the potential impact of the spatial bias. LocationEurope. Time period1950s - 2024 Major taxa studiedEuropean grassland plant species. MethodsWe analyzed the climate niches of a large number of grassland species, with diverse distribution patterns across Europe, based on a) GBIF and b) on an enriched version of GBIF with national atlas data from Eastern European countries (GBIF+), where data coverage is currently low in GBIF. We followed best practices in niche characterization, particularly by performing environmental subsampling. The accuracy in climate niche properties was determined by comparing niches based on GBIF and GBIF+ data with niches based on a careful implementation of expert range maps as reference dataset. We focused on niche optimum position and niche similarity. Additionally, we investigated how biogeographical indicators can predict variability in climate niche accuracy. ResultsMost species exhibited reliable climate niche characterization using GBIF data, especially for widely distributed species. Yet, reliability decreased with continentality; that is, when species were primarily distributed in Eastern Europe. Integrating additional data did not significantly reduce this bias in niche characterization. Main conclusionsDespite the spatial bias in its records, GBIF can be used to reliably characterize the climate niches of many species in Europe if uneven sampling effort is accounted for. The laborious integration of additional data to address spatial bias does not yield the desired increase in niche reliability.