DOI: 10.5061/dryad.g1pk3
title: Data from: Taxonomic and functional turnover are decoupled in European peat bogs

description: In peatland ecosystems, plant communities mediate a globally significant
 carbon store. The effects of global environmental change on plant
 assemblages are expected to be a factor in determining how ecosystem
 functions such as carbon uptake will respond. Using vegetation data from
 56 Sphagnum-dominated peat bogs across Europe, we show that in these
 ecosystems plant species aggregate into two major clusters that are each
 defined by shared response to environmental conditions. Across
 environmental gradients, we find significant taxonomic turnover in both
 clusters. However, functional identity and functional redundancy of the
 community as a whole remain unchanged. This strongly suggests that in peat
 bogs, species turnover across environmental gradients is restricted to
 functionally similar species. Our results demonstrate that plant taxonomic
 and functional turnover are decoupled, which may allow these peat bogs to
 maintain ecosystem functioning when subject to future environmental
 change.
description: Environmental
 dataBioclimatic data and
 environmental data for all 56 European peatland site (geo referenced by
 longitude [long], latitude [lat] and altitude [ALT]. MAT = Mean annual
 temperature (°C), TS = Seasonality in temperature, MAP = Mean annual
 precipitation (mm), PS = Seasonality in precipitation, tot_sox = Total
 sulphur deposition SOx (mg m-2 yr-1), tot_noy = Total oxidized nitrogen
 deposition (mg m-2 yr-1), tot_nhx = Total reduced nitrogen deposition (mg
 m-2), PT warm = Lang’s moisture index. The four bioclimatic variables
 (MAT, TS, MAP, PS) were extracted from the WorldClim database (Hijmans, R.
 J., Cameron, S. E., Parra, J. L., Jones, P. G. & Jarvis, A. Very high
 resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int. J.
 Climatol. 25, 1965–1978 (2005)), and averaged over the 2000-2009 period.
 Atmospheric deposition data were produced using the EMEP (European
 Monitoring and Evaluation Programme)-based IDEM (Integrated Deposition
 Model) model (Pieterse, G., Bleeker, A., Vermeulen, A. T., Wu, Y. &
 Erisman, J. W. High resolution modelling of atmosphere‐canopy exchange of
 acidifying and eutrophying components and carbon dioxide for European
 forests. Tellus B 59, 412–424 (2007)) and consisted of grid cell averages
 of total reduced (NHx) and oxidised (NOy) nitrogen and sulphur (SOx)
 deposition. The moisture index (PTwarm) was calculated as the ratio
 between mean precipitation and mean temperature in the warmest quarter
 (Thornwaite, C. W. & Holzman, B. Measurement of evaporation from land
 and water surfaces. USDA Technical Bulletin 817, 1–143
 (1942))Data
 1_environmental data.txtplant community
 dataAbundance data (% cover)
 for all vascular plant and bryophyte species from five randomly chosen
 hummocks and lawns (0.25 m2 quadrats; ten in total) across 56 European
 Sphagnum-dominated peatlands were collected in two consecutive summers
 (2010 and 2011). Vascular plants and Sphagnum mosses were identified to
 the species level. Non-Sphagnum bryophytes were identified to the family
 level. Lichens were recorded as one group.Data 2_plant community
 data.txttraits vascular
 plantsPlant functional traits
 used to calculate functional indices for the vascular plant communities.
 Traits were extracted from LEDA (Kleyer, M. et al. The LEDA Traitbase: a
 database of life‐history traits of the Northwest European flora. J. Ecol.
 96, 1266–1274 (2008)). Only trait data available for all species our
 data-set were extracted.ncomms_Data 3_traits vascular
 plants.txttraits
 SphagnumTrait values (means) for
 Sphagnum spp. C = tissue carbon content (mg g-1), N = tissue nitrogen
 content (mg g-1), P = tissue phosphorus content (mg g-1), Productivity (
 St.w = stem width (mm), l.h.c. = length hyaline cells (µm), w.h.c. = width
 hyaline cells (µm), l.s.l. = length stem leaves (mm), w.s.l. = width stem
 leaves. These measured traits were complemented with traits extracted from
 the literature. These latter traits included plant length (Hill, M. O.,
 Preston, C. D., Bosanquet, S. & Roy, D. B. BRYOATT: attributes of
 British and Irish mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Centre for Ecology
 & Hydrology, Huntingdon, UK (2007)), spore diameter and capsule
 diameter (Sundberg, S., Hansson, J. & Rydin, H. Colonization of
 Sphagnum on land uplift islands in the Baltic Sea: time, area, distance
 and life history. Journal of Biogeography 33, 1479–1491 (2006)),
 productivity (Gunnarsson, U. Global patterns of Sphagnum productivity. J.
 Bryol. 27, 269–279 (2005))ncomms_Data 4_traits
 Sphagnum.txt