Area of habitat maps and validated occurrences for neotropical birds of conservation concern.

Mapping species distributions is crucial to support effective conservation efforts, especially in the Neotropics, which are experiencing rapid and large-scale habitat conversion and degradation. Area of Habitat (AOH) maps have emerged as spatial tools for representing species distributions, indicating potential habitat suitability within a species' range. We developed AOH maps for 713 neotropical bird species of conservation concern (listed as globally or nationally threatened, endemic, or range-restricted) using primary biodiversity data and a data-driven geospatial workflow. We employed a flagging protocol to improve the quality of approximately 2.5 million occurrence records and manually inspected and validated 50,743 of them. This unparalleled effort led to the creation of high-quality AOH maps, along with altitude-corrected Extent of Occurrence (EOO) and Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) range maps. Our AOH maps significantly improved species distribution predictions for 94% of species over altitude-corrected EOO maps. The utility of the AOH maps generated here is broad, providing a basis for ecological and evolutionary research as well as the identification of critical areas to prioritize conservation efforts.