TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Abstract

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.

Constraining size-dependence of vegetation respiration rates

“…The recent compilation of various plant trait measurements into databases has facilitated global analyses of functional properties. Relevant data on plant leaf, stem, and root r A in the public TRY database 29 showed the range to be comparable to the estimate obtained in my meta-analysis (Fig. 3).…”

“…When standardizing temperature at 15 °C, grid temperature was obtained from CRU TS3.2 36 . plant trait tRY database. Values of r A for different plant organs were downloaded from the TRY database 29 (https://www.try-db.org/TryWeb/Home.php; accessed 30 July 2019). This study used the following open access datasets: "Leaf respiration rate in the dark per leaf dry mass (trait no.…”

“…1b). The right-hand panel shows the ranges and distributions of r A values obtained from the TRY database 29 for leaves, stems, and roots. All r A values have been corrected to a common temperature of 15 °C.…”

Trait-based responses to land use and canopy dynamics modify long-term diversity changes in forest understories

“…Species relative covers were used as weights. Trait values were retrieved from the TRY database (version 5, Kattge et al, 2011Kattge et al, , 2020 and the LEDA database (Kleyer et al, 2008) , and supplemented with our own measurements for common species that were not found from the databases. In four plots, some of the traits were available for less than 80% of total cover.…”

Controls on and consequences of specific leaf area variation with permafrost depth in a boreal forest

“…Modifications to CLM have been proposed 411 that improve representations of leaf traits, nitrogen availability, and plant productivity, with large implications for gross primary production [59]. However, averaging plant trait parameters is 413 problematic, because for several important traits there is more variation within PFTs than 414 between PFTs [12,60,61].Extensive plant trait databases allow for the study of intraspecific variation across species416 and PFTs[61], which has led to calls for inclusion of such variation in ecological studies[62]. In 417 turn, ecosystem models have been developed which incorporate trait plasticity into the existing…”