CactEcoDB: Trait, spatial, environmental, phylogenetic and diversification data for the cactus family

Jamie B. Thompson; Catherine Martinez; Jorge  Avaria-Llautureo; Santiago Ramírez-Barahona; Gerardo  Manzanarez-Villasana; Alastair  Culham; Andrew Gdaniec; George Ryan; Chris  Venditti; Georgia  Keeling; Nicholas K. Priest

doi:10.1038/s41597-026-06936-7

CactEcoDB: Trait, spatial, environmental, phylogenetic and diversification data for the cactus family

Jamie B. Thompson
, Catherine Martinez
, Jorge Avaria-Llautureo
, Santiago Ramírez-Barahona
, Gerardo Manzanarez-Villasana
, Alastair Culham
, Andrew Gdaniec
, George Ryan
, Chris Venditti
, Georgia Keeling
, Nicholas K. Priest

Department of Life Sciences

Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Bath)
University of Reading
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Integrated datasets linking traits, spatial distributions, environmental variables andphylogenies are essential for comparative research, but remain limited for many planttaxa, including those which are most threatened. Cactaceae are a morphologically and ecologically diverse succulent family that are iconic components of ecosystems across the Americas, and face high extinction risk. To support future comparative research, we present CactEcoDB (The Cactus Ecological Database), an Open Access dataset of curated spatial, ecological, trait, phylogenetic, and diversification data for over 1,000 cactus species. CactEcoDB includes species-level trait data, geographic occurrence records, environmental variables, range size estimates, speciation rates, and the largest time-calibrated phylogeny of cacti to date. By integrating these diverse data in a single and accessible platform, CactEcoDB is intended as a community resource for ecological, evolutionary, biogeographic, and conservation-focussed studies involving cacti, one of the most celebrated yet threatened plant families.

Original language	English
Article number	623
Number of pages	17
Journal	Scientific Data
Volume	13
Issue number	1
Early online date	7 Mar 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06936-7
Publication status	Published - 15 Mar 2026

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Craig Hilton-Taylor for granting permission to reproduce IUCN spatial coordinates, Eric Hagen for technical advice running MiSSE, Juriaan de Vos for advice on the phylogenomic backbone, and Itay Mayrose for granting permission to reproduce chromosome counts from the Chromosome Count Database. We also wish to acknowledge the numerous researchers, taxonomists, field biologists and local experts whose primary data collection and descripton underpin the datasets we synthesised here. CactEcoDB builds directly on these collective efforts. This work was funded by a Roger and Sue Whorrod OBE PhD studentship awarded to J.B.T and N.K.P, a British Cactus and Succulent Society research grant to J.B.T and C.M, and a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship to J.B.T. ECF-2025-557.

Keywords

macroevolution
plants
cactus
comparative biology
evolution

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Thompson, J. B., Martinez, C., Avaria-Llautureo, J., Ramírez-Barahona, S., Manzanarez-Villasana, G., Culham, A., Gdaniec, A., Ryan, G., Venditti, C., Keeling, G., & Priest, N. K. (2026). CactEcoDB: Trait, spatial, environmental, phylogenetic and diversification data for the cactus family. Scientific Data, 13(1), Article 623. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06936-7

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CactEcoDB: Trait, spatial, environmental, phylogenetic and diversification data for the cactus family

Abstract

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Keywords

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