Blinded by the bright—Afforestation is affecting widespread sampling deficiency in plant collections.

• Afforestation is affecting widespread sampling deficiency in plant collections. • The big data map the potential artificial and naturals tree coverage of the historical and revisited records of Engelhardia. • The afforestation on historical distribution of recorded plants is blinded by the bright. Against the background of climate change, the booming afforestation is the most effective strategy for climate change mitigation. Also, the rise of the economic forests can bring benefits to eliminate poverty from economic growth. However, it's worth noting that afforestation is affecting widespread sampling deficiency in plant collections. Here, we used the big data to map the potential artificial and naturals tree coverage of the historical and revisited records of Engelhardia. The results show that new collections localities have been discovered in areas with natural forest coverage; on average, the disappearance of recorded localities are likely to be related the increasing artificial forests. Our results highlight the disappearance of recorded species and/or shifts of the biodiversity patterns are blinded by the bright that photosynthetic carbon captured by the afforestation for climate change and the economic values to reduce regional poverty by the economic forests. Therefore, the natural forests are necessary to be valued in biodiversity, ecology and evolution. Also, our study provides insight into the impact of afforestation on historical distribution of recorded plants, which are essential to sustain ecological restoration programs, and will improve ecological managements and policies with the rise of artificial forests across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]