FunAndes - A functional trait database of Andean plants

Abstract

We introduce the FunAndes database, a compilation of functional trait data for the Andean flora spanning six countries. FunAndes contains data on 24 traits across 2,694 taxa, for a total of 105,466 entries. The database features plant-morphological attributes including growth form, and leaf, stem, and wood traits measured at the species or individual level, together with geographic metadata (i.e., coordinates and elevation). FunAndes follows the field names, trait descriptions and units of measurement of the TRY database. It is currently available in open access in the FIGSHARE data repository, and will be part of TRY's next release. Open access trait data from Andean plants will contribute to ecological research in the region, the most species rich terrestrial biodiversity hotspot.

Fig. 1

Geographic distribution of plant traits in FunAndes and TRY version 5 in 1-degree cells (~1 km). Montane sites above 500 m of elevation and buffer areas of 50 km below such elevation show density distribution of the most representative plant traits in FunAndes and TRY along the latitudinal gradient.

Fig. 2

Distribution of plant trait data in FunAndes along gradients of (a) elevation, (b) Mean annual temperature and Mean total annual precipitation. Climatic variables were extracted from the Chelsa climate database.

Fig. 3

Phylogenetic distribution of trait data in FunAndes showing the total number of observations per taxa for the five most represented functional traits: Plant growth form, leaf compoundness, specific leaf area (SLA), wood density, and leaf thickness. The phylogenetic tree shows information for 150 families and 2,690 species. The tree is based on a recent plant phylogeny, nomenclature of The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org), and was created with the package ‘V.phylomaker’ .