DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15563431
title: The global spectrum of plant form and function dataset: taxonomic standardization of 45,955 taxa to World Flora Online version 2023.12

description: The global spectrum of plant form and function dataset (Diaz et al. 2022; Diaz et al. 2016; TRY 2022, accessed 15-May-2025) provides mean trait values for (i) plant height; (ii) stem specific density; (iii) leaf area; (iv) leaf mass per area; (v) leaf nitrogen content per dry mass; and (vi) diaspore (seed or spore) mass for 46,047 taxa.

Here I provide a dataset where the taxa covered by that database were standardized to World Flora Online (Borsch et al. 2020; taxonomic backbone version 2023.12) by matching names with those in the Agroforestry Species Switchboard (Kindt et al. 2025; version 4). Taxa for which no matches could be found were standardized with the WorldFlora package (Kindt 2020), using similar R scripts and the same taxonomic backbone data as those used to standardize species names for the Switchboard. Where still no matches could be found, taxa were matched with those matched previously with a harmonized data set for TRY 6.0 (Kindt 2024).

 

References



Díaz, S., Kattge, J., Cornelissen, J.H.C. et al. The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Sci Data 9, 755 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01774-9

Díaz, S., Kattge, J., Cornelissen, J. et al. The global spectrum of plant form and function. Nature 529, 167–171 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038

TRY. 2022. The global spectrum of plant form and function dataset. https://www.try-db.org/TryWeb/Data.php#81

Borsch, T., Berendsohn, W., Dalcin, E., Delmas, M., Demissew, S., Elliott, A., Fritsch, P., Fuchs, A., Geltman, D., Güner, A., Haevermans, T., Knapp, S., le Roux, M.M., Loizeau, P.-A., Miller, C., Miller, J., Miller, J.T., Palese, R., Paton, A., Parnell, J., Pendry, C., Qin, H.-N., Sosa, V., Sosef, M., von Raab-Straube, E., Ranwashe, F., Raz, L., Salimov, R., Smets, E., Thiers, B., Thomas, W., Tulig, M., Ulate, W., Ung, V., Watson, M., Jackson, P.W. and Zamora, N. (2020), World Flora Online: Placing taxonomists at the heart of a definitive and comprehensive global resource on the world's plants. TAXON, 69: 1311-1341. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12373

Roeland Kindt, Ilyas Siddique, Ian Dawson, Innocent John, Fabio Pedercini, Jens-Peter B. Lillesø, Lars Graudal. 2025. The Agroforestry Species Switchboard, a global resource to explore information for 107,269 plant species. bioRxiv 2025.03.09.642182; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.09.642182  

Kindt, R. 2020. WorldFlora: An R package for exact and fuzzy matching of plant names against the World Flora Online taxonomic backbone data. Applications in Plant Sciences 8(9): e11388. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11388

Kindt, R. (2024). TRY 6.0 - Species List from Taxonomic Harmonization – Matches with World Flora Online version 2023.12 (2024.10b) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13906338


 

Funding

The development of this dataset was supported by the German International Climate Initiative (IKI) to the regional tree seed programme on The Right Tree for the Right Place for the Right Purpose in Africa, by Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative through the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia to the Provision of Adequate Tree Seed Portfolio project in Ethiopia, and by the Bezos Earth Fund to the Quality Tree Seed for Africa in Kenya and Rwanda project.