In search of a perfect trait set: A workflow presentation based on the conservation status assessment of Poland's dendroflora

Abstract

Considering the dynamically changing environment, we cannot be sure whether we are using the best possible plant functional traits to explain ecological mechanisms. We provide a quantitative comparison of 13 trait sets to determine the availability of functional traits representing different plant organs, assess the trait sets with the highest explanatory potential, and check whether including a higher number of traits in a model increases its accuracy. We evaluated the trait sets by preparing 13 models using similar methodology and responding to a research question: How do models with different sets of functional traits predict the conservation status of species? We used the dataset covering all woody species from Poland (N = 387), with 23 functional traits. Our findings indicate that what matters most for a trait set of high explanatory power is the precise selection of those traits. The best fit model was based on the findings of Díaz et al. (2016; The global spectrum of plant form and function, Nature, 529, 167-171) and included only six traits. Importantly, traits representing different plant organs should be included whenever possible: Three of the four best models from our comparison were the ones that included traits of various plant organs.

Keywords: conservation status; data availability; ecological modeling; explanatory power; functional traits; plant organs.

FIGURE 1

Partial dependence plots for the six most important traits of the four best models (from the top left corner: model Díaz, All, CSR, and Morpho. A higher average prediction indicates a higher probability that a given species is threatened, according to a given model. We reduced the number of traits presented to only the six most important ones to maintain clarity.