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

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

Double photoionization of simple molecules of astrochemical interest

An experimental and computational investigation characterizing the processes following the double photoionization of the methyloxirane and N-methylformamide molecules has been reported. The double photoionization experiments have been performed at the Elettra Synchrotron Facility of Trieste (Italy). Preliminary data show: (i) in the case of methyloxirane, six different two-body fragmentation processes leading to CH2+/C2H4O+,CH3+/C2H3O+,O+/C3H6+,OH+/C3H5+,C2H3+/CH3O+,C2H4+/CH2O+pairs of final ions; (ii) in the case of N-methylformamide, two main two-body fragmentation processes, leading to CH3++CH2NO+and H++C2H4NO+. The threshold’s energy for each dissociation channel is determined with the relative cross sections as a function of the investigated photon energy range. A careful analysis of recorded electron-ion-ion coincidence spectra mainly based on a Monte Carlo trajectory simulation is able to provide also the kinetic energy released (KER) distribution for the final ions of the investigated fragmentation reactions. These important experimental data are mandatory information to unravel the physical chemistry of the elementary processes induced by the interaction of photons, with simple relevant organic molecules: (i) the methyloxirane of astrochemical interest, being the first chiral molecule recently discovered in interstellar cloud Sagittarius B2; (ii) the N-methylformamide, being an important simple molecule containing the peptide bond, recently detected in the interstellar medium, in order to investigate its selective cleavage induced by UV photons. In the latter case, this can improve a deeper definition of formation/destruction routes in astrochemical environments of the more abundant formamide molecule