TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Growth Strategies of Tropical Tree Species: Disentangling Light and Size Effects

An understanding of the drivers of tree growth at the species level is required to predict likely changes of carbon stocks and biodiversity when environmental conditions change. Especially in species-rich tropical forests, it is largely unknown how species differ in their response of growth to resource availability and individual size. We use a hierarchical Bayesian approach to quantify the impact of light availability and tree diameter on growth of 274 woody species in a 50-ha long-term forest census plot in Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Light reaching each individual tree was estimated from yearly vertical censuses of canopy density. The hierarchical Bayesian approach allowed accounting for different sources of error, such as negative growth observations, and including rare species correctly weighted by their abundance. All species grew faster at higher light. Exponents of a power function relating growth to light were mostly between 0 and 1. This indicates that nearly all species exhibit a decelerating increase of growth with light. In contrast, estimated growth rates at standardized conditions (5 cm dbh, 5% light) varied over a 9-fold range and reflect strong growth-strategy differentiation between the species. As a consequence, growth rankings of the species at low (2%) and high light (20%) were highly correlated. Rare species tended to grow faster and showed a greater sensitivity to light than abundant species. Overall, tree size was less important for growth than light and about half the species were predicted to grow faster in diameter when bigger or smaller, respectively. Together light availability and tree diameter only explained on average 12% of the variation in growth rates. Thus, other factors such as soil characteristics, herbivory, or pathogens may contribute considerably to shaping tree growth in the tropics

Dominance and rarity in tree communities across the globe: Patterns, predictors and threats

Aim: Ecological and anthropogenic factors shift the abundances of dominant and rare tree species within local forest communities, thus affecting species composition and ecosystem functioning. To inform forest and conservation management it is important to understand the drivers of dominance and rarity in local tree communities. We answer the following research questions: (1) What are the patterns of dominance and rarity in tree communities? (2) Which ecological and anthropogenic factors predict these patterns? And (3) what is the extinction risk of locally dominant and rare tree species? Location: Global. Time period: 1990–2017. Major taxa studied: Trees. Methods: We used 1.2 million forest plots and quantified local tree dominance as the relative plot basal area of the single most dominant species and local rarity as the percentage of species that contribute together to the least 10% of plot basal area. We mapped global community dominance and rarity using machine learning models and evaluated the ecological and anthropogenic predictors with linear models. Extinction risk, for example threatened status, of geographically widespread dominant and rare species was evaluated. Results: Community dominance and rarity show contrasting latitudinal trends, with boreal forests having high levels of dominance and tropical forests having high levels of rarity. Increasing annual precipitation reduces community dominance, probably because precipitation is related to an increase in tree density and richness. Additionally, stand age is positively related to community dominance, due to stem diameter increase of the most dominant species. Surprisingly, we find that locally dominant and rare species, which are geographically widespread in our data, have an equally high rate of elevated extinction due to declining populations through large‐scale land degradation. Main conclusions: By linking patterns and predictors of community dominance and rarity to extinction risk, our results suggest that also widespread species should be considered in large‐scale management and conservation practices

Aboveground forest biomass varies across continents, ecological zones and successional stages: Refined IPCC default values for tropical and subtropical forests

For monitoring and reporting forest carbon stocks and fluxes, many countries in the tropics and subtropics rely on default values of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventories. Default IPCC forest AGB values originated from 2006, and are relatively crude estimates of average values per continent and ecological zone. The 2006 default values were based on limited plot data available at the time, methods for their derivation were not fully clear, and no distinction between successional stages was made. As part of the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for GHG Inventories, we updated the default AGB values for tropical and subtropical forests based on AGB data from >25 000 plots in natural forests and a global AGB map where no plot data were available. We calculated refined AGB default values per continent, ecological zone, and successional stage, and provided a measure of uncertainty. AGB in tropical and subtropical forests varies by an order of magnitude across continents, ecological zones, and successional stage. Our refined default values generally reflect the climatic gradients in the tropics, with more AGB in wetter areas. AGB is generally higher in old-growth than in secondary forests, and higher in older secondary (regrowth >20 years old and degraded/logged forests) than in young secondary forests (20 years old). While refined default values for tropical old-growth forest are largely similar to the previous 2006 default values, the new default values are 4.0-7.7-fold lower for young secondary forests. Thus, the refined values will strongly alter estimated carbon stocks and fluxes, and emphasize the critical importance of old-growth forest conservation. We provide a reproducible approach to facilitate future refinements and encourage targeted efforts to establish permanent plots in areas with data gaps

F420H2-Dependent Degradation of Aflatoxin and other Furanocoumarins Is Widespread throughout the Actinomycetales

Two classes of F420-dependent reductases (FDR-A and FDR-B) that can reduce aflatoxins and thereby degrade them have previously been isolated from Mycobacterium smegmatis. One class, the FDR-A enzymes, has up to 100 times more activity than the other. F420 is a cofactor with a low reduction potential that is largely confined to the Actinomycetales and some Archaea and Proteobacteria. We have heterologously expressed ten FDR-A enzymes from diverse Actinomycetales, finding that nine can also use F420H2 to reduce aflatoxin. Thus FDR-As may be responsible for the previously observed degradation of aflatoxin in other Actinomycetales. The one FDR-A enzyme that we found not to reduce aflatoxin belonged to a distinct clade (herein denoted FDR-AA), and our subsequent expression and analysis of seven other FDR-AAs from M. smegmatis found that none could reduce aflatoxin. Certain FDR-A and FDR-B enzymes that could reduce aflatoxin also showed activity with coumarin and three furanocoumarins (angelicin, 8-methoxysporalen and imperatorin), but none of the FDR-AAs tested showed any of these activities. The shared feature of the compounds that were substrates was an α,β-unsaturated lactone moiety. This moiety occurs in a wide variety of otherwise recalcitrant xenobiotics and antibiotics, so the FDR-As and FDR-Bs may have evolved to harness the reducing power of F420 to metabolise such compounds. Mass spectrometry on the products of the FDR-catalyzed reduction of coumarin and the other furanocoumarins shows their spontaneous hydrolysis to multiple products

Species trait shifts in vegetation and soil seed bank during fen degradation

Fens in Central Europe are characterised by waterlogged organic substrate and low productivity. Human-induced changes due to drainage and mowing lead to changes in plant species composition from natural fen communities to fen meadows and later to over-drained, degraded meadows. Moderate drainage leads to increased vegetation productivity, and severe drainage results in frequent soil disturbances and less plant growth. In the present article, we analyse changes in plant trait combinations in the vegetation and the soil seed bank as well as changes in the seed bank types along gradient of drainage intensity. We hypothesize that an increase in productivity enhances traits related to persistence and that frequent disturbance selects for regeneration traits. We use multivariate statistics to analyse data from three disturbance levels: undisturbed fen, slightly drained fen meadow and severely drained degraded meadow. We found that the abundance of plants regenerating from seeds and accumulating persistent seed banks was increasing with degradation level, while plants reproducing vegetatively were gradually eliminated along the same trajectory. Plants with strong resprouting abilities increased during degradation. We also found that shifts in trait combinations were similar in the aboveground vegetation and in soil seed banks. We found that the density of short-term persistent seeds in the soil is highest in fen meadows and the density of long-term persistent seeds is highest in degraded meadows. The increase in abundance of species with strong regeneration traits at the cost of species with persistence-related traits has negative consequences for the restoration prospects of severely degraded sites

Land-use effects on local biodiversity in tropical forests vary between continents

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