Habitat suitability maps for Australian flora and fauna under CMIP6 climate scenarios

Background: Spatial information about the location and suitability of areas for native plant and animal species under different climate futures is an important input to land use and conservation planning and management. Australia, renowned for its abundant species diversity and endemism, often relies on modelled data to assess species distributions due to the country's vast size and the challenges associated with conducting on-ground surveys on such a large scale. Modelled habitat suitability maps use information about known occurrences of species and predict suitable areas for species using climate, soil and landscape information. Results: Using MaxEnt, we produced Australia-wide habitat suitability maps under RCP2.6-SSP1, RCP4.5-SSP2, RCP7.0-SSP3 and RCP8.5-SSP5 climate futures for 1,382 terrestrial vertebrates and 9,251 vascular plants at 5km2 for open access. This represents 60% of all Australian mammal species, 77% of amphibian species, 50% of reptile species, 71% of bird species and 44% of vascular plant species. We also include tabular data which includes summaries of total quality-weighted habitat area of species under different climate scenarios and time periods. Conclusions: These habitat suitability maps can be used as input data for landscape and conservation planning or species management, particularly under different climate change scenarios in Australia.