Climatic suitability projections of polar lichens under current and future climate scenarios

For Antarctica, permanent ice-covered areas were identified using MODIS MOD09A1 V6.1 eight-day composite imagery. Annual mean normalized difference snow index (NDSI) and the number of snow-covered days were derived, and pixels with more than 360 snow-covered days per year and an annual mean NDSI >0.95 were classified as permanently ice-covered and excluded. For the Arctic, permanent land ice in Greenland was excluded using the NSIDC MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Mapping Project (GIMP) Land Ice and Ocean Classification Mask, Version 1.The normalized difference snow index (NDSI) was calculated from MODIS green band (Band 4, 545–565 nm) and shortwave-infrared band (Band 6, 1628–1652 nm):NDSI=((Band4-Band6))/((Band4+Band6))Data contentsThe dataset includes GeoTIFF raster files representing:Current and future climatic suitability projectionsSuitability change layers, including:habitat gainhabitat lossnet suitability changeSpatial masks defining accessible terrestrial analysis domainsLatitude and elevation redistribution layers The projections are provided separately for each polar region and lichen functional group:Growth formscrustosefoliosefruticoseColour typespalebrightdark