Gastrodia Elata Distribution Changes in China from A.D. 25 to 2100

A.D. 25–2100 records of the prized medicinal herb Gastrodia elata's distribution across China, compiled by Shiyan Liu. The dataset combines historical records from ancient texts with future projections modeled using MaxEnt. It documents shifts in production areas from the Yellow River Basin to the Yangtze River Basin over nearly two millennia.

Use Cases

• Modeling species distribution shifts based on historical climate data and future climate projections.
• Analyzing the relationship between human activities and medicinal plant resource depletion over time.
• Identifying potential future cultivation zones for Gastrodia elata based on simulated suitable habitats.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal range from A.D. 25 to 2100.
• Integrates historical textual analysis with contemporary ecological niche modeling (MaxEnt).
• Explicitly links distribution changes to specific historical periods and climate events like the Little Ice Age.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The data is contained within a 1.1 MB PDF, which may require extraction and structuring for analysis.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Shiyan Liu.

Collection Method

Historical data compiled from ancient Chinese herbal texts and local chronicles; contemporary and future distributions simulated using the MaxEnt model.

Time Range

A.D. 25–2100

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 14:04:48; freshness should be verified.

Geography

China