The quest for recurrent patterns of specialization at the whole-plant level, underpinning the enormous diversity of plant life on Earth has been an area of enquiry that even predates plant ecology. Here we present the first quantitative picture of essential functional diversity of vascular plants, based on functional trait theory and enabled by the worldwide communal database of plant traits, TRY. The analysis is based on information on six traits: plant height, stem specific density, leaf mass per area, leaf nutrient content, leaf size and propagule size. These traits capture essential aspects of growth, survival and reproduction and at the same time are available for thousands of vascular plants worldwide.
Results/Conclusions
The six dimensional trait space occupied by vascular plants is strongly constrained, and can be captured by a two-dimensional global spectrum of plant form and function. One major dimension within this plane reflects the size of whole plants and their parts; the other represents the leaf economics spectrum. This provides the widest scientific context so far for empirically examining theories of plant ecological strategies. In addition, the distribution of major growth forms and lineages in this spectrum is markedly uneven, leading to two functional hotspots, one woody and one herbaceous, and also sparsely populated fringes, which are suggestive or natural selection rather than purely biomechanical constraints. We will present emerging implications and applications of these in the context of macroecology and conservation.