Natural history collections (NHCs) represent an enormous and largely untapped wealth of information on the Earth's biota, made available through GBIF as digital preserved specimen records. Precise knowledge of where the specimens were collected is paramount to rigorous ecological studies, especially in the field of species distribution modelling. Here, we present a first comprehensive analysis of georeferencing quality for all preserved specimen records served by GBIF, and illustrate the impact that coordinate uncertainty may have on predicted potential distributions. We used all GBIF preserved specimen records to analyse the availability of coordinates and associated spatial uncertainty across geography, spatial resolution, taxonomy, publishing institutions and collection time. We used three plant species across their native ranges in different parts of the world to show the impact of uncertainty on predicted potential distributions. We found that 38% of the 180+ million records provide coordinates only and 18% coordinates and uncertainty. Georeferencing quality is determined more by country of collection and publishing than by taxonomic group. Distinct georeferencing practices are more determinant than implicit characteristics and georeferencing difficulty of specimens. Availability and quality of records contrasts across world regions. Uncertainty values are not normally distributed but peak at very distinct values, which can be traced back to specific regions of the world. Uncertainty leads to a wide spectrum of range sizes when modelling species distributions, potentially affecting conclusions in biogeographical and climate change studies. In summary, the digitised fraction of the world's NHCs are far from optimal in terms of georeferencing and quality mainly depends on where the collections are hosted. A collective effort between communities around NHC institutions, ecological research and data infrastructure is needed to bring the data on a par with its importance and relevance for ecological research.

中文翻译：

---

不确定性很重要：确定自然历史收藏中的标本来自哪里及其对预测物种分布的影响

自然历史馆藏 (NHC) 代表了关于地球生物群的巨大且大部分未开发的信息财富，通过 GBIF 作为数字保存的标本记录提供。准确了解标本采集地点对于严格的生态研究至关重要，尤其是在物种分布建模领域。在这里，我们首次对 GBIF 提供的所有保存标本记录的地理参考质量进行了综合分析，并说明了坐标不确定性可能对预测的潜在分布产生的影响。我们使用所有 GBIF 保存的标本记录来分析地理坐标的可用性和相关的空间不确定性、空间分辨率、分类、出版机构和收集时间。我们在世界不同地区的原生范围内使用了三种植物物种来展示不确定性对预测的潜在分布的影响。我们发现 180+ 百万条记录中有 38% 仅提供坐标，18% 提供坐标和不确定性。地理参考质量更多地取决于收集和出版国家，而不是分类群。不同的地理配准实践比标本的隐含特征和地理配准难度更具决定性。世界各地的记录的可用性和质量形成鲜明对比。不确定性值不是正态分布的，而是在非常不同的值处达到峰值，这可以追溯到世界的特定区域。在对物种分布进行建模时，不确定性会导致范围大小的广泛变化，可能影响生物地理学和气候变化研究中的结论。总之，世界 NHC 的数字化部分在地理参考方面远非最佳，质量主要取决于馆藏所在的位置。需要围绕 NHC 机构、生态研究和数据基础设施的社区共同努力，使数据与生态研究的重要性和相关性相提并论。