DOI: 10.5061/dryad.qfttdz0hd
title: Pacific Introduced Flora (PacIFLora)

description: The Pacific region has the highest density of naturalized plant species
 worldwide, which makes it an important area for research on the ecology,
 evolution and biogeography of biological invasions. While different data
 sources on naturalized plant species exist for the Pacific, there is no
 taxonomically and spatially harmonized database available for different
 subsets of species and islands. A comprehensive, accessible database
 containing the distribution of naturalized vascular plant species in the
 Pacific will enable new basic and applied research for researchers and
 will be an important information source for practitioners working in the
 region. Here, we present PacIFlora, an updated and taxonomically
 standardized list of naturalized species, their unified nativeness,
 cultivation and invasiveness status, and their distribution across the
 Pacific Ocean, including harmonized location denomination. This list is
 based on the two largest databases on naturalized plants for the region,
 specifically the Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk (PIER) and the Global
 Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) databases. We provide an outlook for how
 this database can contribute to numerous research questions and
 conservation efforts.
description: To create a matrix of species
 presences on islands and island groups, we used raw data from GloNAF
 version 1.1 and raw data from PIER (updated 2<sup>nd</sup> of
 June 2018). Both PIER and GloNAF list their sources for all records of a
 naturalized species on an island. We harmonized species
 names using the LCVP (Freiberg et al.
 2020) and the associated R-package ‘lcvplants’ (https://github.com/idiv-biodiversity/LCVP). Subspecies and varieties were aggregated to the binomial level, which we refer to as “species” level for simplicity. If a hybrid taxon was not recorded in the LCVP database, it was pooled with the first parent species, affecting 20 species. Forty species names were identified by the LCVP as synonyms for more than one possible species. In these cases, we chose the first species name provided by the LCVP as assigned name to assure reproducibility. Twenty species could not be linked to an accepted name by the LCVP with certainty and were assigned ‘NA’ values for species name, family, and order. We kept these unassignable species in the list format of PacIFlora to allow for future name resolution. Islands often have many names or different spellings. We used web research and other information in our sources to identify synonyms, and chose one name from the sources (usually the most commonly used name). Island refers to the smallest available unit of reference and is therefore sometimes used for several unnamed islets of an atoll in close proximity which are not or only sometimes (tidally) connected by land. 488 islands were recorded. <strong>IslandGroup</strong> is a group name assigned by us. The inclusion of island groupings is useful for many types of research questions, as a complete species list at a broader spatial scale decreases problems of data deficiency for individual islands in an archipelago. Our groups are largely based on political borders, such as municipalities or states. If political borders did not reflect geographic borders, we used the distance between islands and ocean trenches to assign each island to one of 50 island groups. We excluded 146 records that could not be linked to any island group. This particular grouping is useful for questions related to the influence of dispersal barriers on biological invasions, as distance creates a natural barrier and political borders are known to influence dispersal via human imports (either intentional or accidental). However, islands also vary in age, size and geomorphology, and thus we make it possible to regroup the islands in our database into formats that might be better suited for other research questions (e.g. on establishment barriers).
description: All additional information can be found in the associated data
 paper published in the Biodiversity Data Journal. Species are listed as NA
 if the LCVP was not able to assign a valid species name. Islands are
 listed as "NA" if the original precision was not sufficient or
 the island could not be located. The following formats
 are provided: PacIFlora - Full list format of all
 records (species x island, including records with no information on island
 but just island group level and records that could not be identified by
 the LCVP). An island × species matrix, excluding
 records that were missing information. Specifically, this list does not
 include data that have no island information, or species that could not be
 identified by the LCVP. An aggregated island group ×
 species matrix. A table to access reference IDs, Suppl.
 material 3. List format of PacIFLora on island level,
 excluding all records with no information on island but just island group
 level and records that could not be identified by the LCVP.
 List format of PacIFLora on island group level, excluding all
 records that could not be identified by the LCVP and providing aggregated
 values for naturalization, cultivation and invasion status.