DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wdbrv15r1
title: Morphological traits of the flora of the Canary Islands

description: Aim: Functional traits can help elucidate biogeographical and ecological
 processes driving assemblage structure. We analysed the functional
 diversity of plant species of different evolutionary origins across an
 island archipelago, along environmental gradients and across geological
 age, to assess functional aspects of island biogeographic theory.
 Location: Canary Islands, Spain. Major taxa studied: Spermatophytes. Time
 period: Present-day. Methods: We collected data for four traits (plant
 height, leaf length, flower length and fruit length) associated with
 resource acquisition, competitive ability, reproduction and dispersal
 ability of 893 endemic, non-endemic native and alien plant species
 (~43 % of the Canary Island flora) from the literature. Linking
 these traits to species’ occurrences and composition across a
 500 m x 500 m grid, we calculated functional diversity
 for endemic, non-endemic native and alien assemblages using
 multi-dimensional functional hypervolumes and related the resulting
 patterns to climatic (humidity) and island biogeographic (geographical
 isolation, topographic complexity, geological age) gradients. Results:
 Trait space of endemic and non-endemic native species overlapped
 considerably, while alien species added novel trait combinations,
 expanding the overall functional space of the Canary Islands. We found
 that functional diversity of endemic plant assemblages was highest in
 geographically isolated and humid grid cells. Functional diversity of
 non-endemic native assemblages was highest in less isolated and humid grid
 cells. In contrast, functional diversity of alien assemblages was highest
 in arid ecosystems. Topographic complexity and geological age only had a
 subordinate effect on functional diversity across floristic groups. Main
 conclusions: We found that endemic and non-endemic native island species
 possess similar traits, while alien species tend to expand functional
 space in ecosystems where they have been introduced. The spatial
 distribution of the floristic groups’ functional diversity is very
 distinct across environmental gradients, indicating that species
 assemblages of different evolutionary origins functionally thrive in
 dissimilar habitats.
description: We collected data on four
 functional morphological traits that reflect fundamental ecological
 strategies of plants. Morphological trait data of the respective plant
 species were collected from literature sources (Hohenester & Welß,
 1993; Eggli, 2002; Muer, Sauerbier & Calixto, 2016; Schönfelder
 & Schönfelder, 2018b, a), extracted from the GIFT database
 (Weigelt, König & Kreft, 2020), measured on digitised plant
 specimens stored on JSTOR (www.plants.jstor.org) or GBIF (www.gbif.org)
 and extracted from species’ descriptions (Sprague & Hutchinson,
 1914; Bramwell, 1972; Hansen, 1972; Stearn, 1972; de Paz, 1973; Wildpret
 de la Torre, 1973; Bramwell, 1975; Humphries, 1976; de Paz, 1977; La
 Serna, 1980; La Serna & Wildpret, 1980; del Arco Aguilar &
 Acebes Ginovés, 1981; de Paz, 1981; Halliday, 1986; Liu, 1986;
 Mendoza-Heuer, 1987; Galván & Guerra, 1988; Kilian, 1988;
 Negrín-Sosa & de Paz, 1988; Boyce, 1994; Bramwell, 1995a,b; Scholz
 & Böcker, 1996; Marrero, Almeida & González-Martín, 1998;
 Pedrola-Monfort & Caujapé-Castells, 1998; Nogales, Valido, Medina
 & Delgado, 1999; del Arco Aguilar, 2000; Scholz, Stierstorfer
 & Gaisberg, 2000; Valcárcel, Alamo, Baudet & Marrero,
 2001; Baudet, 2002; Gaisberg & Wagenitz, 2002; Marrero &
 Navarro, 2003; Montelongo, Bramwell & Fernández-Palacios, 2003;
 Upson & Andrews, 2003; Chaisongkram & Chantaranothai,
 2006; Kyncl, Suda, Wild, Wildová & Herben, 2006; Sandral, Remizowa
 & Sokoloff, 2006; Alamo, Baudet & Gómez, 2007; Marrero,
 2008; Prina & Martinez-Laborde, 2008; Rodríguez, Fariña &
 Moreno, 2010; Verloove, 2010; Baudet, Rodríguez, & Beaumont, 2013;
 Gonzáles, Morales Mateos, Gonzáles, & Mesa Coello, 2013; Marrero,
 2013; Santos-Guerra, 2014; Vitales et al., 2014; Wood et al., 2015). We
 collected data on maximum trait values as the maximum better reflects
 mature species’ fitness and has better data coverage throughout the
 literature. This is a valid approach as recent studies show that trait
 data from plant determination books are comparable to measured trait data
 (Cutts et al., 2021).