sPlot : a new tool for global vegetation analyses

Bruelheide, Helge; Dengler, J�rgen; Jim�nez-Alfaro, Borja; Purschke, Oliver; Hennekens, Stephan M.; Chytr�, Milan; Pillar, Val�rio D.; Jansen, Florian; Kattge, Jens; Sandel, Brody; Aubin, Isabelle; Biurrun, Idoia; Field, Richard; Haider, Sylvia; Jandt, Ute; Lenoir, Jonathan; Peet, Robert K.; Peyre, Gwendolyn; Sabatini, Francesco Maria; Schmidt, Marco; Schrodt, Franziska; Winter, Marten; and other 116 authors

Abstract

Questions: Vegetation-plot records provide information on presence and cover or abundance of plants co-occurring in the same community. Vegetation-plot data are spread across research groups, environmental agencies and biodiversity research centers, and thus, are rarely accessible at continental or global scales. Here we present the sPlot database, which collates vegetation plots worldwide to allow for the exploration of global patterns in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity at the plant community level.
Location: sPlot version 2.1 contains records from 1,121,244 vegetation plots, which comprise 23,586,216 records of plant species and their relative cover or abundance in plots collected between 1885 and 2015.
Methods: We complemented the information for each plot by retrieving environmental conditions (i.e. climate and soil) and the biogeographic context (i.e. biomes) from external sources, and by calculating community-weighted means and variances of traits using gap-filled data from the global plant trait database TRY. Moreover, we created a phylogenetic tree for 50,167 out of the 54,519 species identified in the plots.
Results: We present the first maps of global patterns of community richness and community-weighted means of key traits.
Conclusions: The availability of vegetation plot data in sPlot offers new avenues for vegetation analysis at the global scale.

Citation

Bruelheide, H., Dengler, J., Jiménez-Alfaro, B., Purschke, O., Hennekens, S. M., Chytrý, M., Pillar, V. D., Jansen, F., Kattge, J., Sandel, B., Aubin, I., Biurrun, I., Field, R., Haider, S., Jandt, U., Lenoir, J., Peet, R. K., Peyre, G., Sabatini, F. M., Schmidt, M., …and other 116 authors. (2019). sPlot : a new tool for global vegetation analyses. Journal of Vegetation Science, 30(2), 161-186. https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.12710

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 15, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Feb 4, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-03
• Deposit Date: Nov 19, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 5, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Vegetation Science
• Print ISSN: 1100-9233
• Electronic ISSN: 1654-1103
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 161-186
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.12710
• Keywords: Plant Science; Ecology
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1285100
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jvs.12710?af=R&
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jvs.12710?af=R&.; This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
• Contract Date: Nov 19, 2018