Tundra Trait Team: A database of plant traits spanning the tundra biome

Abstract

Motivation The Tundra Trait Team (TTT) database includes field‐based measurements of key traits related to plant form and function at multiple sites across the tundra biome. This dataset can be used to address theoretical questions about plant strategy and trade‐offs, trait–environment relationships and environmental filtering, and trait variation across spatial scales, to validate satellite data, and to inform Earth system model parameters. Main types of variable contained The database contains 91,970 measurements of 18 plant traits. The most frequently measured traits (> 1,000 observations each) include plant height, leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf fresh and dry mass, leaf dry matter content, leaf nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus content, leaf C:N and N:P, seed mass, and stem specific density. Spatial location and grain Measurements were collected in tundra habitats in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, including Arctic sites in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Fennoscandia and Siberia, alpine sites in the European Alps, Colorado Rockies, Caucasus, Ural Mountains, Pyrenees, Australian Alps, and Central Otago Mountains (New Zealand), and sub‐Antarctic Marion Island. More than 99% of observations are georeferenced. Time period and grain All data were collected between 1964 and 2018. A small number of sites have repeated trait measurements at two or more time periods. Major taxa and level of measurement Trait measurements were made on 978 terrestrial vascular plant species growing in tundra habitats. Most observations are on individuals (86%), while the remainder represent plot or site means or maximums per species. Software format csv file and GitHub repository with data cleaning scripts in R; contribution to TRY plant trait database (www.try-db.org) to be included in the next version release.

Traditional plant functional groups explain variation in economic but not size‐related traits across the tundra biome

“…Low explanatory power of functional groups could also arise from the choice of traits included in analysis. The traits investigated in this study are considered critical determinants of ecological processes (Díaz et al, ; Pérez‐Harguindeguy et al, ), and represent both available tundra trait data and the focus of trait‐based research in tundra ecosystems (Bjorkman et al, ). Nevertheless, we found that the explanatory power of functional groups was highly trait‐specific (Figure ), and thus functional groups may represent differences amongst plant traits not investigated here that are nonetheless critical to ecosystem function in the tundra (Figure ).…”

“…We combined taxonomic synonyms following The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org) to ensure consistent taxonomy across all studies. As sampling problems inevitably arise from compiling trait data from a large number of disparate studies (Jetz et al, ), we removed duplicate entries, obviously erroneous values (e.g., values <0), and observations more than four standard deviations from each species mean (see Bjorkman et al, for more information). For seed mass, which is prone to measurement error due to the small masses involved and large variation within individuals (Pérez‐Harguindeguy et al, ), we manually checked values more than three standard deviations from each species’ mean and removed values that had clear measurement or transcription error.…”

Invasive species differ in key functional traits from native and non‐invasive alien plant species

“…Most primary data have been submitted to the Tundra Trait Team Database (Bjorkman et al., ) and also stored in Supporting Information related to the present paper ().…”

Plant traits inform predictions of tundra responses to global change

“…The tundra provides an ideal ‘natural laboratory’ in which to test many fundamental questions of trait‐based ecology. It is in the tundra biome, where many plant communities have relatively low species richness (Jetz et al ., ; Bjorkman et al ., ,b), that near‐total trait coverage can be achieved in community‐level analyses. By capturing traits for all component species in tundra plant communities, fundamental questions about the roles of immigrant, locally extinct, common and rare species in changes to ecosystem functions can be estimated in a way that is not possible in other of the world's ecosystems.…”

“…This ‘traits manifesto’ (Reich, ) has seen a dramatic rise in popularity in recent years, improving our understanding of community assembly (Siefert et al ., ) and ecosystem responses to warming (Soudzilovskaia et al ., ). However, progress is hampered by fundamental unknowns regarding the nature of trait variation and physiological tradeoffs (Siefert et al ., ; Díaz et al ., ; Shipley et al ., ), by issues of prediction across scales (Messier et al ., ), and by uneven data coverage among traits, species, and ecosystems (Iversen et al ., ; Jetz et al ., ; Bjorkman et al ., ,b). For trait‐based ecology to reach its full potential, trait–function relationships must be tested across the world's biomes, including in our planet's most extreme environments.…”