DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wpzgmsbjq
title: Plant community data for European ecoregions

description: Patterns in macroecology are related to species occurrence across
 meaningful spatial and temporal scales. The dataset provided here reports
 species distribution data (presence-absence) for herbaceous plants across
 a number of European habitats (ecoregions). Species occurrence is
 accompanied by the corresponding plant's maximun stem height values.
 This dataset has been used to unveil patterns of herbaceous plant height
 clustering in mid-latitude European ecoregions. Presence-absence data for
 herbaceous plants were drawn from Atlas Florae Europaeae (Jalas &
 Suominen, 1964-1999). Associated to each species, a dominant habitat
 (ecoregion) was assigned according to the WWF Biomes of the World
 classification. Each herbaceous species in an ecoregion was characterized
 by its maximum stem height. Mean height values were obtained for different
 sources. In order to correlate clustering patterns with productivity
 measures, actual evapotranspiration (AET) data is also provided. AET maps
 were obtained from data estimated through remote sensing (Mu et al.,
 2011), which are publicly available in the MODIS project website
 (http://www.ntsg.umt.edu/project/modis/mod17.php). Plant distribution and
 trait data across Europe unveils a relation between plant height
 clustering and actual evapotranspiration. This clustering is most evident
 in mid-latitude ecoregions, where conditions for growth (reflected in
 actual evapotranspiration rates) are optimal. Away from this optimum,
 climate severity leads to non-significant height clustering in actual
 communities.
description: <strong>DATASETS:</strong>
 <em>ABUN.Herba.csv</em>: Plant community data were
 drawn from Atlas Florae Europaeae (AFE, Jalas & Suominen,
 1964-1999). The distribution of flora is geographically described using
 equally-sized grid cells based on the Universal Transverse Mercator
 projection and the Military Grid Reference System. Each cell was assigned
 to a dominant habitat type based on the WWF Biomes of the World
 classification (Olson et al., 2001), which defines different ecoregions.
 We consider each cell in an ecoregion to represent a species
 aggregation. <em>TRAIT.Herba.csv</em>: Mean
 height values were obtained from the LEDA database (Kleyer et al., 2008)
 for as many species as there were available in the database. Most of the
 missing values were taken from (Ordonez et al., 2010), and some of them
 inferred using a MICE (Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations)
 approach (Buuren & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, 2011). Based on plant
 growth forms, 2610 herbaceous species (aquatic, herbs, or graminoid) were
 considered in this dataset.
 <em>MODIS_AET_mean.bil</em>: Mean (annual) actual
 evapotranspiration maps were obtained from data estimated through remote
 sensing (Mu et al., 2011), which are publicly available in the MODIS
 project website (http://www.ntsg.umt.edu/project/modis/mod17.php). This
 data was put into a .bil format using QGIS. A map for European ecoregions
 is included in the file <em>ecoregions.bil</em>.
 <strong>CODE:</strong> Python code
 for replicability of the results is provided.
 <em>randomize.py</em>: performs randomization tests
 for each cell, by comparing with random samples taken from species in the
 corresponding ecoregion. It yields p-value distributions for each
 ecoregion, from which it is easy to compute height clustering indices. The
 variation of coexistence probabilities as function of competitive
 strengths can also be reproduced using the output file from this
 code. <em>evapo_data.py</em>: calculates
 ecoregional mean and std for actual evapotranspiration from MODIS data.
 Similar code can be used to obtain gross primary productivity averages.
 This code can be used to correlate AET with clustering indices and
 latitude. Note that this code can be easily adapted to obtain AET by cell
 instead of by ecoregion, using latitude and longitude defining each AFE
 cell.