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. 2022 Dec 7;9(1):755.
doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01774-9.

The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset

Sandra Díaz #  1   2 Jens Kattge #  3   4 Johannes H C Cornelissen  5 Ian J Wright  6   7 Sandra Lavorel  8 Stéphane Dray  9 Björn Reu  10 Michael Kleyer  11 Christian Wirth  12   13   14 I Colin Prentice  7   15   16 Eric Garnier  17 Gerhard Bönisch  12 Mark Westoby  7 Hendrik Poorter  7   18 Peter B Reich  6   19   20 Angela T Moles  21 John Dickie  22 Amy E Zanne  23   24 Jérôme Chave  25 S Joseph Wright  26 Serge N Sheremetiev  27 Hervé Jactel  28 Christopher Baraloto  29 Bruno E L Cerabolini  30 Simon Pierce  31 Bill Shipley  32 Fernando Casanoves  33 Julia S Joswig  12   34 Angela Günther  12 Valeria Falczuk  35   36 Nadja Rüger  13   26   37 Miguel D Mahecha  13   38 Lucas D Gorné  35 Bernard Amiaud #  39 Owen K Atkin  40 Michael Bahn  41 Dennis Baldocchi  42 Michael Beckmann  43 Benjamin Blonder  44   45 William Bond  46   47 Ben Bond-Lamberty  48 Kerry Brown  49 Sabina Burrascano  50 Chaeho Byun  51 Giandiego Campetella  52 Jeannine Cavender-Bares  53 F Stuart Chapin 3rd  54 Brendan Choat  6 David Anthony Coomes  55 William K Cornwell  21 Joseph Craine  56 Dylan Craven  57 Matteo Dainese  58 Alessandro Carioca de Araujo  59 Franciska T de Vries  60 Tomas Ferreira Domingues  61 Brian J Enquist  62   63 Jaime Fagúndez  64 Jingyun Fang  65 Fernando Fernández-Méndez  66   67 Maria T Fernandez-Piedade  68 Henry Ford  69 Estelle Forey  70 Gregoire T Freschet  71 Sophie Gachet  72 Rachael Gallagher  7 Walton Green  73 Greg R Guerin  74 Alvaro G Gutiérrez  75   76 Sandy P Harrison  77 Wesley Neil Hattingh  78 Tianhua He  79   80 Thomas Hickler  81   82 Steven I Higgins  83 Pedro Higuchi  84 Jugo Ilic  85   86 Robert B Jackson  87 Adel Jalili  88 Steven Jansen  89 Fumito Koike  90 Christian König  91   92 Nathan Kraft  93 Koen Kramer  94   95 Holger Kreft  92   96 Ingolf Kühn  13   97   98 Hiroko Kurokawa  99 Eric G Lamb  100 Daniel C Laughlin  101 Michelle Leishman  7 Simon Lewis  102 Frédérique Louault  103 Ana C M Malhado  104 Peter Manning  81   105 Patrick Meir  40   106 Maurizio Mencuccini  107   108 Julie Messier  109 Regis Miller  110 Vanessa Minden  11   111 Jane Molofsky  112 Rebecca Montgomery  19 Gabriel Montserrat-Martí  113 Marco Moretti  114 Sandra Müller  115 Ülo Niinemets  116   117 Romà Ogaya  107   118 Kinga Öllerer  119   120 Vladimir Onipchenko  121 Yusuke Onoda  122 Wim A Ozinga  123 Juli G Pausas  124 Begoña Peco  125 Josep Penuelas  107   118 Valério D Pillar  126 Clara Pladevall  127 Christine Römermann  13   128 Lawren Sack  93 Norma Salinas  45   129 Brody Sandel  130 Jordi Sardans  107   118 Brandon Schamp  131 Michael Scherer-Lorenzen  115 Ernst-Detlef Schulze  12 Fritz Schweingruber #  132 Satomi Shiodera  133   134 Ênio Sosinski  135 Nadejda Soudzilovskaia  136   137 Marko J Spasojevic  138 Emily Swaine  139 Nathan Swenson  140 Susanne Tautenhahn  12 Ken Thompson  141 Alexia Totte  142 Rocío Urrutia-Jalabert  143   144 Fernando Valladares  145   146 Peter van Bodegom  137 François Vasseur  17   147 Kris Verheyen  148 Denis Vile  147 Cyrille Violle  17 Betsy von Holle  149 Patrick Weigelt  92   96 Evan Weiher  150 Michael C Wiemann  110 Mathew Williams  106 Justin Wright  151 Gerhard Zotz  26   152
Affiliations

The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset

Sandra Díaz et al. Sci Data. .

Abstract

Here we provide the 'Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset', containing species mean values for six vascular plant traits. Together, these traits -plant height, stem specific density, leaf area, leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen content per dry mass, and diaspore (seed or spore) mass - define the primary axes of variation in plant form and function. The dataset is based on ca. 1 million trait records received via the TRY database (representing ca. 2,500 original publications) and additional unpublished data. It provides 92,159 species mean values for the six traits, covering 46,047 species. The data are complemented by higher-level taxonomic classification and six categorical traits (woodiness, growth form, succulence, adaptation to terrestrial or aquatic habitats, nutrition type and leaf type). Data quality management is based on a probabilistic approach combined with comprehensive validation against expert knowledge and external information. Intense data acquisition and thorough quality control produced the largest and, to our knowledge, most accurate compilation of empirically observed vascular plant species mean traits to date.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Scatterplot indicating the relation of standard deviation within species and sample size on the example of SLA data (1/LMA) derived from the TRY database version 1 (Kattge et al., Fig. S1).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Climatic and geographical coverage of the dataset. Green points, occurrences according to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (http://www.gbif.org) of species with information on at least one core trait (upper panels) and all six core traits (lower panels). Right panels show distribution in the global map (Robinson projection); grey: land surface. Maps are based on the R package ‘maps’, accessed at The Comprehensive R Archive Network (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/maps/index.html). Left panels show distribution in major climatic regions of the world; grey: MAP and MAT as in Climate Research Unit (CRU) CL v.1.0 0.5 degree climatology (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/data, ref. ); Biome classification according to Whittaker. This figure is reproduced from ref. with permission.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Frequency distributions of species for the six core traits. Grey: species with all six traits; white: species with at least one trait. (a) Plant height, (b) Seed mass, (c) SSD: stem dry mass per stem fresh volume (stem specific density), (d) Leaf area, (e) LMA: leaf dry mass per leaf area, (f) Leaf Nmass: leaf nitrogen content per leaf dry mass (leaf nitrogen concentration).
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
The coverage of species per trait with respect to woodiness (woody versus non-woody incl. semi-woody). The coverage in the GIFT database, a comprehensive baseline of plant growth form, is included for external comparison (see ref. for more details). In parentheses: the number of species with data for the trait and the number of species for which woodiness could be determined.

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