Plant community data for European ecoregions

Abstract

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.