Plant functional trait-based approaches are powerful tools to assess the consequences of global environmental changes for plant ecophysiology, population and community ecology, ecosystem functioning, and landscape ecology. Here, we present data capturing these ecological dimensions from grazing, nitrogen addition, and warming experiments conducted along a 821 m a.s.l. elevation gradient and from a climate warming experiment conducted across a 3,200 mm precipitation gradient in boreal and alpine grasslands in Vestland County, western Norway. From these systems we collected 28,762 plant and leaf functional trait measurements from 76 vascular plant species, 88 leaf assimilation-temperature responses, 577 leaf handheld hyperspectral readings, 2.26 billion leaf temperature measurements, 3,696 ecosystem CO2 flux measurements, and 10.69 ha of multispectral (10-band) and RGB cm-resolution imagery from 4,648 individual images obtained from airborne sensors. These data augment existing longer-term data on local climate, soils, plant populations, plant community composition, and ecosystem functioning from within the same experiments and study systems and from similar systems in other mountain regions globally.

• MeSH
• Ecosystem * MeSH
• Plant Physiological Phenomena * MeSH
• Climate Change * MeSH
• Plant Leaves MeSH
• Plants * MeSH
• Temperature MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Dataset MeSH
• Geographicals
• Norway MeSH

Human activities are causing global biotic redistribution, translocating species and providing them with opportunities to establish populations beyond their native ranges. Species originating from certain global regions, however, are disproportionately represented among naturalized aliens. The evolutionary imbalance hypothesis posits that differences in absolute fitness among biogeographic divisions determine outcomes when biotas mix. Here, we compile data from native and alien distributions for nearly the entire global seed plant flora and find that biogeographic conditions predicted to drive evolutionary imbalance act alongside climate and anthropogenic factors to shape flows of successful aliens among regional biotas. Successful aliens tend to originate from large, biodiverse regions that support abundant populations and where species evolve against a diverse backdrop of competitors and enemies. We also reveal that these same native distribution characteristics are shared among the plants that humans select for cultivation and economic use. In addition to influencing species' innate potentials as invaders, we therefore suggest that evolutionary imbalance shapes plants' relationships with humans, impacting which species are translocated beyond their native distributions.

• MeSH
• Biodiversity * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Climate MeSH
• Plants MeSH
• Seeds MeSH
• Introduced Species * MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

Assessing the distribution of geographically restricted and evolutionarily unique species and their underlying drivers is key to understanding biogeographical processes and critical for global conservation prioritization. Here, we quantified the geographic distribution and drivers of phylogenetic endemism for ~320,000 seed plants worldwide and identified centers and drivers of evolutionarily young (neoendemism) and evolutionarily old endemism (paleoendemism). Tropical and subtropical islands as well as tropical mountain regions displayed the world's highest phylogenetic endemism. Most tropical rainforest regions emerged as centers of paleoendemism, while most Mediterranean-climate regions showed high neoendemism. Centers where high neo- and paleoendemism coincide emerged on some oceanic and continental fragment islands, in Mediterranean-climate regions and parts of the Irano-Turanian floristic region. Global variation in phylogenetic endemism was well explained by a combination of past and present environmental factors (79.8 to 87.7% of variance explained) and most strongly related to environmental heterogeneity. Also, warm and wet climates, geographic isolation, and long-term climatic stability emerged as key drivers of phylogenetic endemism. Neo- and paleoendemism were jointly explained by climatic and geological history. Long-term climatic stability promoted the persistence of paleoendemics, while the isolation of oceanic islands and their unique geological histories promoted neoendemism. Mountainous regions promoted both neo- and paleoendemism, reflecting both diversification and persistence over time. Our study provides insights into the evolutionary underpinnings of biogeographical patterns in seed plants and identifies the areas on Earth with the highest evolutionary and biogeographical uniqueness-key information for setting global conservation priorities.

• Keywords
• islands, mountains, past climate change, phylogenetic endemism, plant diversity,
• MeSH
• Biodiversity * MeSH
• Biological Evolution * MeSH
• Phylogeny MeSH
• Geology MeSH
• Seeds MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

Identifying conditions and traits that allow an introduced species to grow and spread, from being initially rare to becoming abundant (defined as invasiveness), is the crux of invasion ecology. Invasiveness and abundance are related but not the same, and we need to differentiate these concepts. Predicting both species abundance and invasiveness and their relationship in an invaded community is highly contextual, being contingent on the community trait profile and its invasibility. We operationalised a three-pronged invasion framework that considers traits, environmental context, and propagule pressure. Specifically, we measure the invasiveness of an alien species by combining three components (performance reflecting environmental suitability, product of species richness and the covariance between interaction strength and species abundance, and community-level interaction pressure); the expected population growth rate of alien species simply reflects the total effect of propagule pressure and the product of their population size and invasiveness. The invasibility of a community reflects the size of opportunity niches (the integral of positive invasiveness in the trait space) under the given abiotic conditions of the environment. Both species abundance and the surface of invasiveness over the trait space can be dynamic and variable. Whether an introduced species with functional traits similar to those of an abundant species in the community exhibits high or low invasiveness depends largely on the kernel functions of performance and interaction strength with respect to traits and environmental conditions. Knowledge of the covariance between interaction strength and species abundance and these kernel functions, thus, holds the key to accurate prediction of invasion dynamics.

• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Review MeSH

One of the most fundamental questions in ecology is how many species inhabit the Earth. However, due to massive logistical and financial challenges and taxonomic difficulties connected to the species concept definition, the global numbers of species, including those of important and well-studied life forms such as trees, still remain largely unknown. Here, based on global ground-sourced data, we estimate the total tree species richness at global, continental, and biome levels. Our results indicate that there are ∼73,000 tree species globally, among which ∼9,000 tree species are yet to be discovered. Roughly 40% of undiscovered tree species are in South America. Moreover, almost one-third of all tree species to be discovered may be rare, with very low populations and limited spatial distribution (likely in remote tropical lowlands and mountains). These findings highlight the vulnerability of global forest biodiversity to anthropogenic changes in land use and climate, which disproportionately threaten rare species and thus, global tree richness.

• Keywords
• biodiversity, forests, hyperdominance, rarity, richness,
• MeSH
• Forests * MeSH
• Trees classification   growth & development   MeSH
• Conservation of Natural Resources * MeSH
• Earth, Planet MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. MeSH