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TRY - a global database of plant traits

  • J. Kattge
  • , S. Díaz
  • , S. Lavorel
  • , I. C. Prentice
  • , P. Leadley
  • , G. Bönisch
  • , E. Garnier
  • , M. Westoby
  • , P. B. Reich
  • , I. J. Wright
  • , J. H.C. Cornelissen
  • , C. Violle
  • , S. P. Harrison
  • , P. M. Van Bodegom
  • , M. Reichstein
  • , B. J. Enquist
  • , N. A. Soudzilovskaia
  • , D. D. Ackerly
  • , M. Anand
  • , O. Atkin
  • M. Bahn, T. R. Baker, D. Baldocchi, R. Bekker, C. C. Blanco, B. Blonder, W. J. Bond, R. Bradstock, D. E. Bunker, F. Casanoves, J. Cavender-Bares, J. Q. Chambers, F. S. Chapin, J. Chave, D. Coomes, W. K. Cornwell, J. M. Craine, B. H. Dobrin, L. Duarte, W. Durka, J. Elser, G. Esser, M. Estiarte, W. F. Fagan, J. Fang, F. Fernández-Méndez, A. Fidelis, B. Finegan, O. Flores, H. Ford, D. Frank, G. T. Freschet, N. M. Fyllas, R. V. Gallagher, W. A. Green, A. G. Gutierrez, T. Hickler, S. I. Higgins, J. G. Hodgson, A. Jalili, S. Jansen, C. A. Joly, A. J. Kerkhoff, D. Kirkup, K. Kitajima, M. Kleyer, S. Klotz, J. M.H. Knops, K. Kramer, I. Kühn, H. Kurokawa, D. Laughlin, T. D. Lee, M. Leishman, F. Lens, T. Lenz, S. L. Lewis, J. Lloyd, J. Llusià, F. Louault, S. Ma, M. D. Mahecha, P. Manning, T. Massad, B. E. Medlyn, J. Messier, A. T. Moles, S. C. Müller, K. Nadrowski, S. Naeem, Ü Niinemets, S. Nöllert, A. Nüske, R. Ogaya, J. Oleksyn, V. G. Onipchenko, Y. Onoda, J. Ordoñez, G. Overbeck, W. A. Ozinga, S. Patiño, S. Paula, J. G. Pausas, J. Peñuelas, O. L. Phillips, V. Pillar, H. Poorter, L. Poorter, P. Poschlod, A. Prinzing, R. Proulx, A. Rammig, S. Reinsch, B. Reu, L. Sack, B. Salgado-Negret, J. Sardans, S. Shiodera, B. Shipley, A. Siefert, E. Sosinski, J. F. Soussana, E. Swaine, N. Swenson, K. Thompson, P. Thornton, M. Waldram, E. Weiher, M. White, S. White, S. J. Wright, B. Yguel, S. Zaehle, A. E. Zanne, C. Wirth
  • Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
  • Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
  • CNRS
  • Macquarie University
  • Université Paris-Saclay
  • University of Minnesota Twin Cities
  • Western Sydney University
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • University of Arizona
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • University of Guelph
  • Australian National University
  • University of Innsbruck
  • University of Leeds
  • University of Groningen
  • Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
  • University of Cape Town
  • University of Wollongong
  • New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • University of Alaska Fairbanks
  • University of Cambridge
  • Kansas State University
  • Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
  • Justus Liebig University Giessen
  • Autonomous University of Barcelona
  • University of Maryland, College Park
  • Peking University
  • Universidad del Tolima
  • Universidade de São Paulo
  • Université de La Réunion
  • University of York
  • Harvard University
  • Frankfurt Am Main
  • Goethe University Frankfurt
  • University of Sheffield
  • Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Tehran
  • Ulm University
  • Universidade Estadual de Campinas
  • Kenyon College
  • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • University of Florida
  • University of Oldenburg
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  • Wageningen University & Research
  • Tohoku University
  • Northern Arizona University
  • University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
  • Naturalis Biodiversity Center
  • James Cook University Queensland
  • UMR Ecosystème Prairial
  • Newcastle University
  • University of New South Wales
  • Leipzig University
  • Columbia University
  • Estonian University of Life Sciences
  • Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences
  • Lomonosov Moscow State University
  • Kyushu University
  • CIDE-CSIC
  • Jülich Research Centre
  • University of Regensburg
  • Université de Rennes 1
  • Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
  • Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
  • Technical University of Denmark
  • University of California at Los Angeles
  • Hokkaido University
  • Université de Sherbrooke
  • Syracuse University
  • Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária
  • University of Aberdeen
  • Michigan State University
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • University of Leicester
  • Utah State University
  • Smithsonian Institution
  • University of Missouri at St. Louis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2202 Scopus citations

Abstract

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs - determine how primary producers respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, influence ecosystem processes and services and provide a link from species richness to ecosystem functional diversity. Trait data thus represent the raw material for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography. Here we present the global database initiative named TRY, which has united a wide range of the plant trait research community worldwide and gained an unprecedented buy-in of trait data: so far 93 trait databases have been contributed. The data repository currently contains almost three million trait entries for 69000 out of the world's 300000 plant species, with a focus on 52 groups of traits characterizing the vegetative and regeneration stages of the plant life cycle, including growth, dispersal, establishment and persistence. A first data analysis shows that most plant traits are approximately log-normally distributed, with widely differing ranges of variation across traits. Most trait variation is between species (interspecific), but significant intraspecific variation is also documented, up to 40% of the overall variation. Plant functional types (PFTs), as commonly used in vegetation models, capture a substantial fraction of the observed variation - but for several traits most variation occurs within PFTs, up to 75% of the overall variation. In the context of vegetation models these traits would better be represented by state variables rather than fixed parameter values. The improved availability of plant trait data in the unified global database is expected to support a paradigm shift from species to trait-based ecology, offer new opportunities for synthetic plant trait research and enable a more realistic and empirically grounded representation of terrestrial vegetation in Earth system models.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2905-2935
Number of pages31
JournalGlobal Change Biology
Volume17
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2011

Funding

FundersFunder number
226299
0620652, 0716587
Natural Environment Research CouncilNE/D005590/1, NE/D01168X/1

    UN SDGs

    This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

    1. SDG 15 - Life on Land
      SDG 15 Life on Land

    Keywords

    • Comparative ecology
    • Database
    • Environmental gradient
    • Functional diversity
    • Global analysis
    • Global change
    • Interspecific variation
    • Intraspecific variation
    • Plant attribute
    • Plant functional type
    • Plant trait
    • Vegetation model

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