The global distribution of plant diversity.

Remote sensing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and mechanistic modelling—combined with new global datasets—reveal that biogeographical history, environment, traits, and biotic interactions jointly shape plant diversity patterns worldwide.

• Why it matters: Key uncertainties persist because species distribution data have gaps and biases, and taxonomic, trait, interaction, and phylogenetic information remains incomplete, limiting biodiversity research and conservation.
• What they did: The work synthesizes current knowledge on plant distribution patterns and their drivers, emphasizing methodological advances and how they quantify diversity and help uncover contributing causes.
• The result: It concludes that technological progress alone cannot resolve these challenges and that integrated data collection and mobilization, improved analyses, and collaborative international research are needed to close knowledge gaps under ongoing anthropogenic environmental change.

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