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. Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) and DIVERSITAS, the TRY database (TRY-not an acronym, rather a statement of sentiment; https ://www.try-db.org; Kattge et al., 2011) was proposed with the explicit assignment to improve the availability and accessibility of plant trait data for ecology and earth system sciences. The Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC) offered to host the database and the different groups joined forces for this community-driven program. Two factors were key to the success of TRY: the support and trust of leaders in the field of functional plant ecology submitting large databases and the long-term funding by the Max Planck Society, the MPI-BGC and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, which has enabled the continuous development of the TRY database.

For secondary prevention following acute MI, younger age, depression, and a complex drug treatment plan are associated with lower medication adherence. Meanwhile, adherence is increased in patients with higher insurance coverage levels and social support. Compared with the 3 drugs given separately, the use of a polypill strategy met the primary endpoint for adherence for secondary prevention following an acute MI. (Fixed Dose Combination Drug [Polypill] for Secondary Cardiovascular Prevention [FOCUS]; NCT01321255).

Summary1. Long-term basal area increment (BAI) in Abies pinsapo was studied to investigate the way density-dependent factors modulate the responses of radial growth to climatic stresses in relict stands of a drought-sensitive Mediterranean fir. 2. First, we verified that spatially explicit competition predicts mean A. pinsapo BAI at our study site; i.e. it modulates the degree to which the average climate-driven potential for growth is expressed. Second, we verified that the long-term pattern of temperature predicts the long-term pattern of BAI, estimated as the main trend over a time period of c. 40 years. Finally, we assessed whether the intensity of tree-to-tree competition restrains the potential improvements achieved by our model of BAI when a short-term, high-frequency stressor such as drought (inter-annual precipitation variability) is introduced. 3. We applied Dynamic Factor Analysis (DFA) to characterize regional climatic trends and to test the hypothesis that trees subjected to contrasting competition intensity may differ in their growth pattern. Significant long-term climate trends obtained by DFA were used as predictors of long-term BAI. 4. The mean BAI was mainly determined by competition, whereas growth trends obtained by DFA did not differ among dominant, suppressed and dying trees. Common trends of growth decline were strongly related to long-term, late-winter to summer temperatures, while the residuals were related to total annual precipitation, although with decreasing significance as competition increased. Our results support the contention that the reported patterns of A. pinsapo growth decline and death occur as a result of the interacting effects of both competition and climate stressors acting at longand short-term time scales. 5. Synthesis. Long-term climatic drought stress was the main driving factor of growth decline in A. pinsapo. Moreover, trees already suffering from competition (a long-term stress) were predisposed to decline given an additional short-term stress, such as a severe drought.

Severe droughts have the potential to reduce forest productivity and trigger tree mortality. Most trees face several drought events during their life and therefore resilience to dry conditions may be crucial to long-term survival. We assessed how growth resilience to severe droughts, including its components resistance and recovery, is related to the ability to survive future droughts by using a tree-ring database of surviving and now-dead trees from 118 sites (22 species, >3,500 trees). We found that, across the variety of regions and species sampled, trees that died during water shortages were less resilient to previous non-lethal droughts, relative to coexisting surviving trees of the same species. In angiosperms, drought-related mortality risk is associated with lower resistance (low capacity to reduce impact of the initial drought), while it is related to reduced recovery (low capacity to attain pre-drought growth rates) in gymnosperms. The different resilience strategies in these two taxonomic groups open new avenues to improve our understanding and prediction of drought-induced mortality.

Forests play a key role in the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems. One of the main uncertainties in global change predictions lies in how the spatiotemporal dynamics of forest productivity will be affected by climate warming. Here we show an increasing influence of climate on the spatial variability of tree growth during the last 120 y, ultimately leading to unprecedented temporal coherence in ring-width records over wide geographical scales (spatial synchrony). Synchrony in growth patterns across cold-constrained (central Siberia) and droughtconstrained (Spain) Eurasian conifer forests have peaked in the early 21st century at subcontinental scales (∼1,000 km). Such enhanced synchrony is similar to that observed in trees co-occurring within a stand. In boreal forests, the combined effects of recent warming and increasing intensity of climate extremes are enhancing synchrony through an earlier start of wood formation and a stronger impact of year-to-year fluctuations of growing-season temperatures on growth. In Mediterranean forests, the impact of warming on synchrony is related mainly to an advanced onset of growth and the strengthening of droughtinduced growth limitations. Spatial patterns of enhanced synchrony represent early warning signals of climate change impacts on forest ecosystems at subcontinental scales. U nderstanding how climate change affects forests across multiple spatiotemporal scales is important for anticipating its impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. Increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration and shifts in phenology (1-3) could favor tree growth by enhancing photosynthesis and extending the effective growing period, respectively (4). Conversely, recent warming could increase respiration rates and, together with increasing heat and drought stresses, exert negative impacts on forest productivity (5, 6). Given the uncertainty as to what extent enhanced carbon uptake could be offset by the detrimental effects of warming on tree performance, the actual consequences of climate change on forest carbon cycling remain under debate. Notably, climate change has a stronger impact on forests constrained by climatic stressors, such as suboptimal temperatures or water shortage (7). As high-resolution repositories of biological responses to the environment, dendrochronological archives can be used to monitor this impact (8).The concept of spatial synchrony in tree growth refers to the extent of coincident changes in ring-width patterns among geographically disjunct tree populations (9). Climatic restrictions tend to strengthen growth-climate relationships, resulting in enhanced common ringwidth signals (i.e., more synchronous tree growth). Thus, regional bioclimatic patterns can be delineated by identifying groups of trees whose growth is synchronously driven by certain climatic constraints (10, 11). Previous synthesis studies have provided evidence for globally coherent multispecies responses to climate change in natural systems, including forests, with a focus on the role of increasingly warmer tempe...