Anthropogenic and Climatic Variables Jointly Shape the Global Geographical Pattern of Hybrid Plant Diversity

The emergence and dispersal of hybrid plants are influenced by a complex interplay of climatic, environmental, and anthropogenic factors. However, systematic investigations into the global patterns of hybrid plant diversity and their underlying drivers remain scarce. In this study, we compiled a comprehensive dataset encompassing 3543 hybrid plants and their parental species across 274 geographical regions. We analyzed the species richness, species density (SD), and hybridization index (which quantifies the spatial overlap between hybrids and their parental species), along with their associations with climatic, vegetation, and anthropogenic variables. Our results reveal that hybrid plant diversity is highest in Europe and Japan, whereas Africa, Oceania, and the Atlantic Ocean exhibit significantly lower diversity. Notably, hybrid plant diversity shows strong correlations with both anthropogenic and climatic factors, with anthropogenic influences playing a more dominant role in shaping global hybrid distributions. This is particularly evident in hybrid-rich regions such as Europe and Japan, where locally distributed hybrids display reduced overlap with their parental species—a pattern likely driven by human-mediated dispersal or other anthropogenic activities. Our findings provide novel insights into the global diversity and dispersal dynamics of hybrid plants.