Abstract
Plant traits are critical to plant form and function —including growth, survival and reproduction— and therefore shape fundamental aspects of population and ecosystem dynamics as well as ecosystem services. Here, we present a global species-level compilation of key functional traits for palms (Arecaceae), a plant family with keystone importance in tropical and subtropical ecosystems. We derived measurements of essential functional traits for all (>2500) palm species from key sources such as monographs, books, other scientific publications, as well as herbarium collections. This includes traits related to growth form, stems, armature, leaves and fruits. Although many species are still lacking trait information, the standardized and global coverage of the data set will be important for supporting future studies in tropical ecology, rainforest evolution, paleoecology, biogeography, macroecology, macroevolution, global change biology and conservation. Potential uses are comparative eco-evolutionary studies, ecological research on community dynamics, plant-animal interactions and ecosystem functioning, studies on plant-based ecosystem services, as well as conservation science concerned with the loss and restoration of functional diversity in a changing world.
Highlights
Background & SummaryMost ecosystems are composed of a large number of species with different characteristics
We provide the data via the Dryad digital repository[181] and via the TRY plant trait database
To facilitate integration with other datasets, we further provide the following files: 4. An R script containing code that allows to combine the PalmTraits 1.0 database with species distribution and phylogenetic information a www.nature.com/scientificdata
Summary
Most ecosystems are composed of a large number of species with different characteristics. Palms can provide important insights into the evolution of tropical rainforests[28,37,38,39], historical biogeography[40,41,42], past climate change[43,44,45] and the vulnerability and response of ecosystems to ongoing and future global change[46,47,48] Despite this outstanding role of palms in tropical ecosystems and tropical biological science, studies using palm functional trait data across broad spatial scales remain scarce[35,38,49,50]. Species-level trait information was assembled from >130 sources including monographs and taxonomic revisions as well as credible online sources and two herbaria with extensive palm collections By making these data available to the scientific community, we aim to advance the sharing and digitalization of ecological trait data and understanding of the global ecology, biogeography and evolution of palms and the tropical rainforests they inhabit
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