Recent developments in the context of the TRY Plant Trait Database

Abstract

<p>Plant traits - morphological, anatomical, biochemical, physiological or phenological features measurable at the level of individuals or their component organs or tissues - reflect the outcome of evolutionary and community assembly processes responding to abiotic and biotic environmental constraints. Therefore, measurements of plant traits and trait syndromes (consistent associations of plant traits) are valuable observations to evaluate models based on eco-evolutionary optimality (EEO) principles. In 2007 the TRY database project (https://www.try-db.org/) was initiated to improve the empirical basis for trait-based ecological studies, trying to bring together the different plant trait databases worldwide. As a result, the TRY Plant Trait Database has constantly been growing and has accomplished unprecedented coverage. Since 2019 the data are publicly available under a CC BY license. This presentation is supposed to provide an update on recent developments in the context of the TRY initiative, i.e. the recently released new version of the TRY database (version 6), the release of the 'Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset', and the 'rtry' R package to support preprocessing of trait data retrieved from the TRY database.</p>

A review of natural and managed revegetation responses in two de-watered reservoirs after large dam removals on the Elwha River, Washington, USA

“…Naturally regenerating communities differed significantly with sediment exposure timing and among the two reservoirs in 2013; these differences persisted in 2015 (Werner, 2014). When combined with functional trait metrics from the TRY Plant Trait database (TRY Plant Trait Database (try-db.org); Kleyer et al, 2008;Kattge et al, 2011), drawdown timing-based differences in species establishment also translated to a difference in community-weighted functional trait metrics, with higher values of specific leaf area, seed mass, and maximum canopy height in the earlier-exposed soils.…”

Trait-related functional changes in understory forest community after invasion are driven by complementarity rather than displacement

“…We obtained species level trait data on leaf N (mg/g), specific leaf area (SLA; mm 2 /mg) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC; g/g, oven-dry mass of leaf/water-saturated fresh mass of leaf) from TRY database (Kattge et al, 2011). Species values were obtained in a twostep process.…”

“…In this study, we surveyed plant communities in temperate forest understories across a gradient of invasion, and linked these surveys to trait data of leaf N, SLA, and LDMC from the TRY database (Kattge et al, 2011). We then investigated the effect of invasive species on both modifying total community and native community trait distributions, by quantifying changes in functional trait at the community level.…”

Anthropogenic disturbance modifies tree functional traits in the only remnant swamp forest of Bangladesh

“…Recent studies investigated the variation among functional traits in different functional ecosystems (Sharmin et al, 2016;Fyllas et al, 2020) as functional traits mediate the performance of the ecosystem (Diaz et al, 2004). (Kattge et al, 2011) Most of these studies, however, were conducted in relatively less complex grassland ecosystems (Roscher et al, 2012;Zuo et al, 2012) with only a few conducted in forests or wetlands (Roy et al, 2019).…”