Phytoplankton morpho-functional trait dataset from French water-bodies

Abstract

In lake ecosystems, phytoplankton communities can be studied by adopting taxonomic-based approaches. However, these approaches suffer from identification issues and are sometimes of limited ecosystem ecological value. The recent development of functional approaches may allow an evaluation of other aspects of ecosystem quality, functions and interactions with abiotic parameters or other communities. Here, our aim was to create a phytoplankton trait database at the French scale. This database will be relevant for the analysis of phytoplankton communities that will lead to a better understanding of phytoplankton functional ecology in lakes of France and other European countries possessing similar biological communities. We used a French national database of phytoplankton occurrences sampled from 384 lakes over the entire French metropolitan territory. A final list of 636 taxa was used to compile 53 morpho-functional traits associated with taxonomic information. The traits encompassed variables such as shape, biovolume, motility, toxin production and Reynolds groups. With this new database, we aim to provide data for morpho-functional analyses of phytoplankton assemblages from local to European scale.