Vascular plants are the main entry point for energy and matter into the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Their Darwinian struggle for growth, survival and reproduction in very different arenas has resulted in an extremely wide variety of form and function, both across and within habitats. Yet it has long been thought 1-8 that there is a pattern to be found in this remarkable evolutionary radiation-that some trait constellations are viable and successful whereas others are not.Empirical support for a strongly limited set of viable trait combinations has accumulated for traits associated with single plant organs, such as leaves 7,9-12 , stems 13,14 and seeds [15][16][17] . Evidence across plant organs has been rarer, restricted geographically or taxonomically, and often contradictory [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] . How tightly whole-plant form and function are restricted at the global scale remains unresolved.Here we present the first global quantitative picture of essential functional diversity of extant vascular plants. We quantify the volume, shape and boundaries of this functional space via joint consideration of six traits that together capture the essence of plant form and function: adult plant height, stem specific density, leaf size expressed as leaf area, leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen content per unit mass, and diaspore mass. Our dataset, based on a recently updated communal plant trait database 30 , covers 46,085 vascular plant species from 423 families and to our knowledge spans the widest range of growth-forms and geographical locations to date in published trait analyses, including some of the most extreme plant trait values ever measured in the field (Table 1, Extended Data Fig. 1). On this basis we reveal that the trait space actually occupied is strongly restricted as compared to four alternative null hypotheses. We demonstrate that plant species largely occupy a plane in the six-dimensional trait space. Two key trait dimensions within this plane are the size of whole plants and organs on the one hand, and the construction costs for photosynthetic leaf area, on the other. We subsequently show which sections of the plane are occupied, and how densely, by different growth-forms and major taxonomic groups. The design opportunities and limits indicated by today's global spectrum of plant form and function provide a foundation to achieve a better understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of vascular plants and help frame and test hypotheses as to where and Earth is home to a remarkable diversity of plant forms and life histories, yet comparatively few essential trait combinations have proved evolutionarily viable in today's terrestrial biosphere. By analysing worldwide variation in six major traits critical to growth, survival and reproduction within the largest sample of vascular plant species ever compiled, we found that occupancy of six-dimensional trait space is strongly concentrated, indicating coordination and trade-offs. Threequarters of trait variation is captured in a t...

Plant traits – the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs – determine how primary producers respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, influence ecosystem processes and services and provide a link from species richness to ecosystem functional diversity. Trait data thus represent the raw material for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography. Here we present the global database initiative named TRY, which has united a wide range of the plant trait research community worldwide and gained an unprecedented buy-in of trait data: so far 93 trait databases have been contributed. The data repository currently contains almost three million trait entries for 69 000 out of the world's 300 000 plant species, with a focus on 52 groups of traits characterizing the vegetative and regeneration stages of the plant life cycle, including growth, dispersal, establishment and persistence. A first data analysis shows that most plant traits are approximately log-normally distributed, with widely differing ranges of variation across traits. Most trait variation is between species (interspecific), but significant intraspecific variation is also documented, up to 40% of the overall variation. Plant functional types (PFTs), as commonly used in vegetation models, capture a substantial fraction of the observed variation – but for several traits most variation occurs within PFTs, up to 75% of the overall variation. In the context of vegetation models these traits would better be represented by state variables rather than fixed parameter values. The improved availability of plant trait data in the unified global database is expected to support a paradigm shift from species to trait-based ecology, offer new opportunities for synthetic plant trait research and enable a more realistic and empirically grounded representation of terrestrial vegetation in Earth system models.

Fire is a worldwide phenomenon that appears in the geological record soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants. Fire influences global ecosystem patterns and processes, including vegetation distribution and structure, the carbon cycle, and climate. Although humans and fire have always coexisted, our capacity to manage fire remains imperfect and may become more difficult in the future as climate change alters fire regimes. This risk is difficult to assess, however, because fires are still poorly represented in global models. Here, we discuss some of the most important issues involved in developing a better understanding of the role of fire in the Earth system.

Climate change has already triggered species distribution shifts in many parts of the world. Increasing impacts are expected for the future, yet few studies have aimed for a general understanding of the regional basis for species vulnerability. We projected late 21st century distributions for 1,350 European plants species under seven climate change scenarios. Application of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List criteria to our projections shows that many European plant species could become severely threatened. More than half of the species we studied could be vulnerable or threatened by 2080. Expected species loss and turnover per pixel proved to be highly variable across scenarios (27-42% and 45-63% respectively, averaged over Europe) and across regions (2.5-86% and 17-86%, averaged over scenarios). Modeled species loss and turnover were found to depend strongly on the degree of change in just two climate variables describing temperature and moisture conditions. Despite the coarse scale of the analysis, species from mountains could be seen to be disproportionably sensitive to climate change (Ϸ60% species loss). The boreal region was projected to lose few species, although gaining many others from immigration. The greatest changes are expected in the transition between the Mediterranean and Euro-Siberian regions. We found that risks of extinction for European plants may be large, even in moderate scenarios of climate change and despite inter-model variability.Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change storylines ͉ species extinction ͉ species turnover ͉ niche-based model