Plant Growth Forms Research Articles

Abundance of white lace lerp psyllids on understorey and canopy river red gums and relationships with foliar sugars and tannins

Abstract1. Trees present herbivorous insects with the greatest diversity of resources of any plant growth form. Both ontogeny and shading can alter suitability for arboreal insect herbivores.2. We conducted a longitudinal study of tagged ‘mature’ (>12 months old) Eucalyptus camaldulensis leaves to compare the suitability of understorey and canopy trees for the leaf senescence‐inducing psyllid, Cardiaspina albitextura. We quantified sugars and tannins as possible predictors of nymphal abundance.3. Canopy leaves hosted double the number of nymphs as understorey leaves. Variation among individual trees (understorey and canopy) was the most important source of heterogeneity explaining psyllid abundance, although relative leaf age significantly influenced oviposition on canopy leaves. The diversity of foliar sugars was higher among canopy leaves than among understorey leaves. There was significant between‐tree diversity in total hydrolysable tannins (HTs) and total condensed tannins (CTs) among understorey trees but not among canopy trees. Heterogeneity among understorey and canopy trees was explained by greater diversity of ellagitannins (HTs) than of CTs.4. Shading is detrimental to the survival of nymphs on both host types, but sugars are unlikely to explain variation in suitability. Vescalagin (an ellagitannin) was negatively correlated with the abundance of nymphs on both host types.

Harnessing aquatic plant growth forms to apply European nutrient-enrichment bioindicators to Canadian waters.

PremiseAquatic macrophyte species abundance and nutrient affinity are used in metrics to assess the trophic condition of lakes and rivers. The development of these indices is often regional, with inter‐regional comparisons being complicated by the lack of taxonomic overlap. Here, we use a traits‐based approach to expand the geographic scope of existing metrics.MethodsWe generalized European trophic affinity values using the response of plant growth form to the light–nutrient gradient, then applied these values to sites in Canada. We evaluated the method's performance against the measured total phosphorus concentration (TP).ResultsFree‐floating and emergent growth forms were associated with enriched waters (>0.2 mg/L TP), whereas rosette forms were associated with oligotrophic conditions (<0.05 mg/L TP). The responses were longitudinally consistent, and the site scores among indices were highly collinear. Growth form–based scores were more strongly correlated with TP than were species‐based scores (0.42–0.56 versus 0.008–0.25).DiscussionWe leveraged the ecological relationship between increased surface water nutrient enrichment and the dominance of particular aquatic plant growth forms to generalize aquatic plant trophic indices. We demonstrated an approach for adapting species‐based indices to plant traits to facilitate a broader geographic application and simpler data collection, which could be used to develop an easily applied trait‐based method of assessing water nutrient status.

Traditional Medicinal Plants Used for the Treatment of Urological and Urogenital Diseases in Ethiopia: A Review

Introduction: Ethiopia is recognized as one of the richest biodiversity in Africa. The present review aimed to compile relevant information on medicinal plants traditionally used to manage urogenital diseases in Ethiopia. Methods: Different literatures published specifically on ethnobotanical use of medicinal plants in scientific journals, books, theses and proceedings were reviewed. Data from literatures were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) Version 20 and an Excel spreadsheet and reported using descriptive statistics, frequency, and percentage. Results: A total of 146 medicinal plants are reported in the reviewed literature. It was distributed in 127 genera and 64 families. Cucurbitaceae (7.51%), Asteriaceae (7.51%), Euphorbaceae (6.20%) and Apiaceae (4.80%) were family’s accounts of high number of species. A higher diversity of medicinal plants was reported from Southern nations and nationalities (44.5%), Oromia (41.1%) and Amhara (27.4%) regional states. The most frequently reported growth form of medicinal plants indicated in the review was herbs (46.8%), followed by shrubs (32.6%). Root (36.2%) and leaves (35.3%) were the most used parts. Decoction (26.1%), concoction (16.5%) and pounding (11.9%) were the most frequently reported remedy preparation methods and were administered orally. Conclusion: The present review indicated that urogenital diseases were managed with different medicinal plants throughout the regions of Ethiopian needed scientifically confirmed in order to produce safe and effective drugs from natural products.

A Review on Medicinal Plants Used in the Management of Respiratory Problems in Ethiopia over a Twenty-Year Period (2000-2021).

This review is aimed at assessing and compiling the different ethnomedicinal studies in different parts of Ethiopia used to treat respiratory diseases. The data were collected from different published research papers through searching the web sources such as PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and other related websites. The important search terminologies included ethnobotany, respiratory diseases, medicinal plants, and Ethiopia. For this, a total of 65 articles of recent publications (from 2000 to May 2021 years) that provided full information about the use of medicinal plant species to treat respiratory disorder diseases in Ethiopia were consulted. Based on this, a total of 96 medicinal plants belonging to 57 families were reviewed. The commonly recorded families used to manage respiratory problems were Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Solanaceae, and Fabaceae. Herbs and shrubs were the dominant plant growth forms. Due to the easiest form of their preparation for treating respiratory disorders, leaves are the most cited plant parts followed by roots. Crushing and pounding are useful methods of remedy preparation to treat respiratory diseases. This review concluded that different medicinal plants have a significant contribution in combating serious respiratory problems in Ethiopia. Hence, the complied review of medicinal plants on the treatment of respiratory problems would play a great role in further pharmacological and phytochemical investigations in developing new drugs used for the treatment of respiratory problems and in the conservation of these important medicinal plants.

Importance of invasion mechanisms varies with abiotic context and plant invader growth form

Abstract Many invasion hypotheses propose biotic interactions as the main mechanism to explain non‐native species' success. Despite the evidence that the strength of biotic interactions varies with abiotic context, it remains unclear whether the importance of the different mechanisms proposed to explain invasion predictably varies with the abiotic context and whether this variation is consistent across different growth forms. We reviewed studies at a global scale to evaluate whether evapotranspiration, latitude, precipitation and temperature influence the importance of disturbance, enemy release, facilitation, and novel weapons mechanisms to explain non‐native plant invasions. In total, we calculated 171 effect sizes for ~300 non‐native plant species covering a wide range of environmental conditions and growth forms. Environmental context and plant growth form influenced the role played by each invasion mechanism. The importance of disturbance in facilitating invasion exhibited a quadratic relationship with latitude and temperature, and decreased with increasing precipitation. In mixed communities and trees, disturbance was mediated by either evapotranspiration, latitude, precipitation or temperature. Enemy release exhibited a quadratic relationship with evapotranspiration, latitude and precipitation, and it was positively related to temperature. The importance of enemy release was also contingent on growth form and was highly context‐dependent. Enemy release responses for grasses, and trees were modulated by either evapotranspiration, latitude, precipitation or temperature. The importance of facilitation decreased with increasing temperature. In forbs, facilitation decreased with evapotranspiration and temperature. The importance of novel weapons was more strongly confirmed for studies conducted at lower evapotranspiration, precipitation and higher latitudes, and exhibited a quadratic relationship with temperature. Synthesis. Our results show that environmental conditions not only filter non‐native species depending on physiological tolerances but may also influence the importance of invasion mechanisms.

Plant selection for green infrastructure: a review of recommended species for stormwater management devices

Currently, one of the research gaps in the development of green infrastructure (GI) landscape projects, lies in plant selection, which are adequate to the GI existing devices and to regional characteristics. Therefore, the objective of this work was to perform a systematic literature review of GI in Brazil, focusing on stormwater management devices and their recommended species. A search was performed on Google Scholar, which identified 196 articles published in national journals by the end of 2019, which simultaneously contained the words ‘espécie’ (‘species’) and ‘infraestrutura verde’ (‘green infrastructure’) – and spelling variations in Portuguese. However, as GI is a wider concept and can encompass several strategies, the articles underwent an exploratory reading to verify which ones were directly related to the research objective. Seven articles fell within the scope, and 82 plant species were identified as recommended for use in the projects, some species with extensive documented experience on water treatment devices, while others only a suggestion for future use. In addition, complementary information about the species was surveyed to enable its use in landscape projects, such as: indication of use; botanical family; plant growth forms; substrate; origin; endemism; and distribution in the Brazilian Phytogeographic Domains (Amazonia, Caatinga, Cerrado, Mata Atlântica, Pampa, and Pantanal). This material was organized in a database, which can serve as a subsidy for the consolidation of a plant repertoire to be used in landscape projects with this purpose in Brazil.

Towards an animal economics spectrum for ecosystem research

Abstract The framework of the plant economics spectrum advanced our understanding of plant ecology and proved as a unifying concept across plant taxonomy, growth forms and biomes. Similar approaches for animals mostly focus on linking life‐history and metabolic theories, but not on their application in ecosystem research. To fill this gap, we propose the animal economics spectrum (AES) based on broadly available traits that describe organismal size, biological times and rates. To exemplify the feasibility and general usefulness of constructing the AES, we compiled data on adult and offspring body mass, life span, age at first reproduction, reproductive and metabolic rate of 98 terrestrial taxa from seven selected animal classes and mapped these taxa into an exemplary quantitative trait space. The AES consists of two principal axes related to reproductive strategies and the pace of life; both axes are linked by animal metabolism. The AES thus closely mirrors seminal ideas on fundamental life‐history strategies and more recent discoveries and developments in the fields of life‐history and metabolic theories. Furthermore, we find associations between the positions of animals within the AES and taxonomy, thermoregulation and body plan. The AES shows that key dimensions describing different ecological strategies of animals can be depicted with functional traits that are relatively easily accessible for a broad spectrum of animal taxa. We suggest future steps towards an application of the AES in ecosystem research aiming at the understanding of ecological processes and ecosystem functions. Additionally, we urge for databases that compile comparable functional traits for a large proportion of animals, but also for further groups of organisms with the ultimate goal to map the economics spectrum of life. The framework of the AES will be relevant for understanding ecological processes across animal taxa at species, community and ecosystem levels. We further discuss how it can facilitate predictions on how the functional composition and diversity of animal communities can be affected by global change. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Microhabitat preferences of butterflies in urban parks: Both vegetation structure and resources are decisive

Urban parks comprise diverse microhabitats, such as vegetation units of lawn and arbour forests, with differing biodiversity potentials. However, the influences of microhabitats on butterfly diversity and the mechanisms involved remain unclear. This study used butterfly survey data from 112 plots in 27 urban parks in the central metropolitan area of Beijing, China, from June to September 2020. Based on the growth form of larval host plants, recorded butterfly species were classified into three functional groups: woody plant-feeding taxa (WF), herb-feeding taxa (HF), and feeding on multiple plant growth forms taxa (MF). We analysed the effects of 11 variables among three facets, namely, vegetation composition, vegetation structure, and human activity, on the butterfly diversity (species richness and abundance) of the whole community, three functional groups using generalised linear mixed models. Twenty-five butterfly species observed mainly feed on herbs rather than on woody plants. Our results demonstrated that vegetation community characteristics explain up to 24% and 43% variation in butterfly species richness and abundance, respectively. Of this, vegetation structure facets crucially affected butterfly species richness, and vegetation composition facets had the most significant influence on the abundance of the whole butterfly community. However, the impact of human activity factors was minimal. Light availability and herb height belonging to vegetation structure factors and nectar plant species richness and nectar abundance which belonged to vegetation composition factors showed the most important and positive effects on butterfly diversity. The positive impact of the above significant factors was found especially on herb-feeding butterfly diversity. In contrast, the diversity of butterflies feeding on woody plants was most positively influenced by herb height. We thus suggest that it is necessary to guarantee the presence of a well-developed herb layer, which provides abundant nectar sources and maintain specific open spaces to ensure light availability. In conclusion, our findings imply that the critical role of the spatial structure of vegetation community is conspicuous in the formation of suitable microhabitats for butterflies, and managers could combine vegetation management practices with the needs of specific functional groups.

Leaf nutrient resorption differs among canopy and understory plant species in subtropical Eucalyptus and Acacia plantations

AbstractAlthough plants are known to conserve nutrients by resorbing them from senescing leaves, how resorption of foliar macro‐ and micronutrients is affected by plant growth form (e.g., trees, shrubs, and ferns) and forest age are not well understood. The current study was conducted in four subtropical monoculture plantations: Eucalyptus and Acacia plantations in 14 and 35 years old, respectively. Leaf resorption efficiencies (REs) and resorption proficiencies (RPs) of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and manganese (Mn) of the canopy trees and understory shrubs and ferns were determined. N, P, and K but not Ca and Mn were generally resorbed from senescing leaves. RE was significantly higher for P than N, indicating that P was more limiting than N in the subtropical plantations. Nutrient REs did not differ with plantation age, while nutrient RPs generally tended to be lower in the 14‐year‐old than in the 35‐year‐old plantations. REs significantly differed among canopy and understory plant species with different growth forms, that is, NRE, PRE, and KRE values were much higher in woody plants (especially the canopy tree species) than in ferns. REs were correlated with foliar nutrient concentrations but not with soil nutrient concentrations. Our findings suggest that resorption of nutrients from senescing leaves differs among canopy and understory plants, and implicate that introducing native tree species into these plantations could be implemented for accelerating the community succession and further improving the multifunctionality.

Variation and adaptation in leaf sulfur content across China

Abstract Sulfur is an essential functional element in leaves, and it plays important roles in regulating plant growth, development and abiotic stress resistance in natural communities. However, there has been limited information on the spatial variation in leaf sulfur content (LSC) and adaptive characters on a large community scale. Sulfur in leaves of 2207 plant species from 80 widespread ecosystems (31 forests, 38 grasslands and 11 deserts) in China was measured. One-way analysis of variance with Duncan’s multiple-range tests were used to evaluate the differences in LSC among different plant growth forms and ecosystems. We fitted the relationships of LSC to spatial and climate factors using regression. Structural equation modeling analysis and phylogenetic analysis helped us further explore the main factors of LSC variation. LSC ranged from 0.15 to 48.64 g kg–1, with an average of 2.13 ± 0.04 g kg–1 at the community scale in China. We observed significant spatial variation in LSC among different ecosystems and taxa. Overall, LSC was higher in arid areas and herbs. Furthermore, higher LSC was observed under environments of drought, low temperatures and intense ultraviolet radiation. Temperature, precipitation, radiation, soil sulfur content and aridity jointly regulated LSC, explaining 79% of the spatial variation. However, LSC was not significantly related to phylogeny. Our results demonstrate that LSC plays an important role in plant adaptations to extreme environments and further extend our understanding of the biological function of sulfur from the organ to the community level. These findings highlight the importance of sulfur metabolism for our understanding of the impact of global climate change on plants.

Study of plant resources with ethnomedicinal relevance from district Bagh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan

Abstract An ethnomedicinal expedition was conducted to collect and record indigenous knowledge about the use of medicinal plants by local inhabitants of four villages (Chittra, Topi, Pandi, and Kalri) of district Bagh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Ethnomedicinal data were obtained from 60 randomly selected local inhabitants of the study area through semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. These data were analyzed quantitatively through different ethnobotanical indices including family importance value, relative frequency of citation, use value (UV), fidelity level (FL), informant consensus factor (ICF), and Jaccard index (JI). our study reported 69 medicinal plants belonging to 39 families. Rosaceae (9 species) was a dominant family of the study area. Herb (54.83%) was dominant growth form of plants used for medicinal purpose. Leaves contributed maximum usage (44.29%) for curing diseases. Decoction (23 records) was most used mode of utilization. Relative frequency of citation and UV ranged from 0.03–0.85 and 0.05–1.17, respectively. There were 4 plant species with 100% FL. Highest ICF (0.88%) was found for gastrointestinal diseases. By comparing results with previous study, JI ranged from 0.54 to 24.43%. Our results found that there were 18 plant species not reported with ethnomedicinal aspect in previous studies from district Bagh region. The research of this study concludes that the area is rich with medicinal plants and the local inhabitant of this area still prefer medicinal plants over allopathic medicines for treating different ailments. Comparative analysis has shown some novel uses of plant species which may be due to cultural differences of the study area. However, awareness and pharmacological study are needed to conserve and unveil pharmaceutically important plants.

Legacy effects of a multi-year extreme drought on belowground bud banks in rhizomatous vs bunchgrass-dominated grasslands.

Belowground bud banks play a crucial role in plant population regeneration, community dynamics, and functional responses of ecosystems to environmental change and disturbance. In mesic grasslands, belowground bud banks are largely resistant to short-term drought. However, the sensitivity of belowground bud banks to long-term extreme drought in semi-arid grasslands is less understood. We investigated the legacy effects of a four-year experimental drought (i.e., 66% reduction in growing season precipitation) on belowground bud density, aboveground shoot density, and the meristem limitation index (MLI; the ratio of bud to shoot density) in two semi-arid grasslands that differ in dominant grass species growth forms (i.e., rhizomatous vs. bunchgrasses). Measurements were made during the first recovery year following drought; thus, we report the legacy effects of drought on belowground bud banks. At the community level, drought reduced belowground bud density and aboveground shoot density with no change in MLI. However, drought had no significant influences on belowground buds, aboveground shoots and MLI of the dominant plant growth form in each community. The legacy effects of drought were largely dependent on plant community type and growth form. Specifically, bunchgrasses and bunchgrass-dominated communities were characterized by greater meristem limitation than rhizomatous grasses, likely due to their cluster/phalanx clonal growth. Overall, our study suggests bud banks may indeed be sensitive to long-term drought, although this depends on plant growth forms and community characteristics.

Relationships between nature connectedness, biodiversity of private gardens, and mental well-being during the Covid-19 lockdown

Private gardens have an enormous impact on urban biodiversity, making individual householder behavior critical to the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity in urban areas. Nature connectedness is considered to be a prerequisite for proenvironmental behavior, but how it manifests in private gardens is largely unexplored. Nature connectedness has also been found to be associated with several well-being dimensions. The present study investigates the associations between nature connectedness, biodiversity of private gardens, and mental well-being during the Covid-19 lockdown, a stressful period in many people’s lives. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to analyze data from an online survey of private gardeners in two cities, one in Germany and one in New Zealand, in May 2020, approximately two months after the beginning of the first Covid-19 lockdown. Garden characteristics explained a significant amount of variance in depression symptoms during the Covid- 19 lockdown. In light of rising pressures on urban green spaces, the findings point to the importance of private garden qualities for mental health and well-being. Nature connectedness emerged as a significant predictor of feature richness, a measure of the heterogeneity of habitats that support wildlife, and plant growth form richness in people’s gardens in both city samples. Nature connectedness was also a significant predictor of the extent to which people experienced positive emotions during the Covid-19 lockdown but not negative emotions and depression symptoms. Our results suggest that nature connectedness can provide benefits for both the environment and people through its positive association with private garden biodiversity and positive emotions.

Lianas Significantly Reduce Tree Performance and Biomass Accumulation Across Tropical Forests: A Global Meta-Analysis

Lianas are a quintessential tropical plant growth-form; they are speciose and abundant in tropical forests worldwide. Lianas compete intensely with trees, reducing nearly all aspects of tree performance. However, the negative effects of lianas on trees have never been combined and quantified for multiple tropical forests. Here, we present the first comprehensive standardized quantification of the effect of lianas on trees across tropical forests worldwide. We used data from 50 liana removal experiments and quantified the effect size of lianas on tree growth, biomass accretion, reproduction, mortality, leaf water potential, sap flow velocity, and leaf area index (LAI) across different forest types. Using a three-level mixed-effect meta-analysis, we found unequivocal evidence that lianas significantly reduce tree growth and biomass accretion in ecological, logging, and silvicultural studies. Lianas also significantly reduce tree reproduction, recruitment, and physiological performance. The relative detrimental effect of lianas on trees does not increase in drier forests, where lianas tend to be more abundant. Our results highlight the substantial liana-induced reduction in tree performance and biomass accumulation, and they provide quantitative data on the effects of lianas on trees that are essential for large-scale plant demographic and ecosystem models that predict forest change and carbon dynamics.

Resource Remobilization Efficiency Varies With Plant Growth Form but Not Between Fens and Bogs

Resource resorption from senescing leaves is an important strategy for internal nutrient recycling in plants. However, our understanding of whether the responses of resource remobilization to mire types (fens vs. bogs) differ among various plant growth forms remains unclear. We thus assessed resource remobilization among various growth forms in fens and bogs in the Hani peatland in the Changbai Mountains, northeastern China. We analyzed and compared the concentrations of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) in leaves and roots collected in August (mid-season) and September (end-season), and calculated the resource remobilization efficiency (RRE) of four species belonging to four growth forms grown in both fens and bogs. The deciduous dwarf trees (Betula fruticosa) and perennial grass (Phragmites australis) had relative higher leaf RRE than the moss (Sphagnum magellanicum). Although leaf nutrient RRE did not differ between fens and bogs, the deciduous dwarf trees had a higher leaf NSC RRE in bogs than in fens, and the moss NSC RRE was lower in bogs than in fens. Our results suggest that reallocation of mobile carbohydrates seems to be more sensitive to the growth condition than nutrients (N, P, and K) under nutrient-poor inhabits, which may be one of the reasons leading to nutrient limitation in peatlands.

Large mammalian herbivores modulate plant growth form diversity in a tropical rainforest

Abstract The world’s terrestrial biomes are broadly classified according to the dominant plant growth forms that define ecosystem structure and processes. Although the abundance and distribution of different plant growth forms can be strongly determined by factors such as climate and soil composition, large mammalian herbivores have a strong impact on plant communities, thus defaunation (the local or functional extinction of large animals) has the potential to alter the compositional structure of plant growth forms in natural ecosystems. Tropical rainforests sustain a high diversity of growth forms, including trees, palms, lianas, shrubs, herbs and bamboos, all of which play important ecosystem functions. Here, we experimentally evaluate how large mammalian herbivores affect the dominance, diversity and coexistence of these major tropical forest plant growth forms, by monitoring communities of saplings on the understorey in 43 paired exclusion plots in a long‐term replicated exclusion experiment in the understorey of the Atlantic forest of Brazil. Over the course of 10 years large herbivore exclusion decreased diversity among growth forms, increased the absolute abundance of palms and trees (22% and 38% respectively) and increased the diversity of species within these two groups, to the detriment of other growth forms. Furthermore, all pairwise relationships between growth forms were positive on plots where herbivores had access, whereas several strong negative relationships emerged in plots where herbivores were excluded. This occurred despite strong background directional temporal trends affecting plant communities in both experimental treatments across the region. Synthesis. Our work indicates that the defaunation alters growth form dominance by favouring palms and trees while eroding diversity among growth forms and coexistence on a temporal scale. Large herbivore mammals promote diversity among growth forms, preventing the hyper‐dominance of trees and palms, yet without supressing the diversity of species within growth forms. We argue that large herbivore mammals affect growth forms through several non‐mutually exclusive mechanisms, including herbivory, seed dispersal and physical disturbance, as well as differential effects linked to the morphological and physiological adaptations of growth forms. We conclude that defaunation might lead to profound impacts on important ecosystem functions underpinned by growth form diversity, and result in vertical and horizontal structural simplification of tropical rainforests.

Relative Importance of Landscape and Climate Factors to the Species Diversity of Plant Growth Forms along an East Asian Archipelago

Previous studies on island biogeography theory have limitations in that they are mostly focused on total plant species and the landscape factors of the islands. Our study was conducted to overcome these limitations by dividing the plants into five growth forms and analyzing climate and landscape factors on inhabited islands, uninhabited islands, and overall. This was achieved using plant data from 578 islands of an archipelago in South Korea. To test the relationship between the species richness of each growth form and environmental factors, we performed ordinary least squares regressions and multi-model inference tests. The results showed that the island area had the largest influence on species richness of all growth forms in overall and uninhabited islands. Moreover, climate factors, in addition to island area, significantly affected species richness of all growth forms on inhabited islands. However, the effect and of isolation-related landscape factors (i.e., distance from the mainland and structural connectivity) were different among growth forms and island categories. Our study reveals that there are differences in the effects of environmental factors on the growth forms of plants among island categories. This suggests that biodiversity management and conservation strategies should be applied separately to different growth forms and islands.

Evidence of Differences in Covariation Among Root Traits Across Plant Growth Forms, Mycorrhizal Types, and Biomes.

Fine roots play an important role in plant ecological strategies, adaptation to environmental constraints, and ecosystem functions. Covariation among root traits influence the physiological and ecological processes of plants and ecosystems. Root trait covariation in multiple dimensions at the global scale has been broadly discussed. How fine-root traits covary at the regional scale and whether the covariation is generalizable across plant growth forms, mycorrhizal types, and biomes are largely unknown. Here, we collected six key traits – namely root diameter (RD), specific root length (SRL), root tissue density (RTD), root C content (RCC), root N content (RNC), and root C:N ratio (RCN) – of first- and second-order roots of 306 species from 94 sampling sites across China. We examined the covariation in root traits among different plant growth forms, mycorrhizal types, and biomes using the phylogenetic principal component analysis (pPCA). Three independent dimensions of the covariation in root traits were identified, accounting for 39.0, 26.1, and 20.2% of the total variation, respectively. The first dimension was represented by SRL, RNC, RTD, and RCN, which was in line with the root economics spectrum (RES). The second dimension described a negative relationship between RD and SRL, and the third dimension was represented by RCC. These three main principal components were mainly influenced by biome and mycorrhizal type. Herbaceous and ectomycorrhizal species showed a more consistent pattern with the RES, in which RD, RTD, and RCN were negatively correlated with SRL and RNC within the first axis compared with woody and arbuscular mycorrhizal species, respectively. Our results highlight the roles of plant growth form, mycorrhizal type, and biome in shaping root trait covariation, suggesting that root trait relationships in specific regions may not be generalized from global-scale analyses.

ATLANTIC POLLINATION: a data set of flowers and interaction with nectar-feeding vertebrates from the Atlantic Forest.

Flowering plant species and their nectar-feeding vertebrates exemplify some of the most remarkable biotic interactions in the Neotropics. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, several species of birds (especially hummingbirds), bats, and non-flying mammals, as well as one lizard feed on nectar, often act as pollinators and contribute to seed output of flowering plants. We present a dataset containing information on flowering plants visited by nectar-feeding vertebrates and sampled at 166 localities in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. This dataset provides information on 1902 unique interactions among 515 species of flowering plants and 129 species of potential vertebrate pollinators and the patterns of species diversity across latitudes. All plant-vertebrate interactions compiled were recorded through direct observations of visits, and no inferences of pollinators based on floral syndromes were included. We also provide information on the most common plant traits used to understand the interactions between flowers and nectar-feeding vertebrates: plant growth form, corolla length, rate of nectar production per hour in bagged flowers, nectar concentration, flower color and shape, time of anthesis, presence or absence of perceptible fragrance by human, and flowering phenology as well as the plant's threat status by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classification. For the vertebrates, status of threat by IUCN classification, body mass, bill or rostrum size are provided. Information on the frequency of visits and pollen deposition on the vertebrate's body is provided from the original source when available. The highest number of unique interactions is recorded for birds (1771) followed by bats (110). For plants, Bromeliaceae contains the highest number of unique interactions (606), followed by Fabaceae (242) and Gesneriaceae (104). It is evident that there was geographical bias of the studies throughout the southeast of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and that most effort was directed to flower-hummingbird interactions. However, it reflects a worldwide tendency of more plants interacting with birds compared with other vertebrate species. The lack of similar protocols among studies to collect basic data limits the comparisons among areas and generalizations. Nevertheless, this dataset represents a notable effort to organize and highlight the importance of vertebrate pollinators in this hotspot of biodiversity on Earth and represents the data currently available. No copyright or proprietary restrictions are associated with the use of this data set. Please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications or scientific events.

Souzayuri/LMH_exclusion_experiment_plant_growth_forms: Large mammalian herbivores modulate plant growth form diversity in a tropical rainforest

souzayuri/LMH_exclusion_experiment_plant_growth_forms: Large mammalian herbivores modulate plant growth form diversity in a tropical rainforest