Data for: The tortoise and the hare: Range dynamics of North American plant species

By tracking the relative movement of leading, core, and trailing populations, we identify two dominant movement types that differ in core movement speed (i.e., range movement speed), distance between the leading and trailing edges (i.e., range extent), and the relative position of the core to the leading edge (i.e., range asymmetry).

Asymmetric fast shifts are characterized by faster movement, larger extents, and progressive separation of the core and leading edge, and are associated with colder core environments and wind seed dispersal. Symmetric slow shifts are characterized by slower movement, smaller extents, and progressive convergence of the core and leading edge, and are associated with warmer core environments and animal seed dispersal. Dispersal mechanisms may help explain contrasting patterns of range asymmetry between asymmetric fast and symmetric slow shifts, consistent with differences in the relative contributions of gene flow, selection, and genetic drift.</p><p dir="ltr">The repository includes the final datasets used in this study, as well as the original cleaned FIA files, which can be used to reproduce the data-processing steps and prepare the data for subsequent analyses, including phylogenetic linear models.