sPlotOpen – An environmentally balanced, open-access, global dataset of vegetation plots

Sabatini FM, Lenoir J, Hattab T, Arnst EA, Chytrý M, Dengler J, De Ruffray P, Hennekens SM, Jandt U, Jansen F, Jiménez-Alfaro B, Kattge J, Levesley A, Pillar VD, Purschke O, Sandel B, Sultana F, Aavik T, Aćić S, Acosta AT, Agrillo E, Alvarez M, Apostolova I, Arfin Khan MA, Arroyo L, Attorre F, Aubin I, Banerjee A, Bauters M, Bergeron Y, Bergmeier E, Biurrun I, Bjorkman AD, Bonari G, Bondareva V, Brunet J, Čarni A, Casella L, Cayuela L, Černý T, Chepinoga V, Csiky J, Ćušterevska R, De Bie E, de Gasper AL, De Sanctis M, Dimopoulos P, Dolezal J, Dziuba T, El-Sheikh MAERM, Enquist B, Ewald J, Fazayeli F, Field R, Finckh M, Gachet S, Galán-de-Mera A, Garbolino E, Gholizadeh H, Giorgis M, Golub V, Alsos IG, Grytnes JA, Guerin GR, Gutiérrez AG, Haider S, Hatim MZ, Hérault B, Hinojos Mendoza G, Hölzel N, Homeier J, Hubau W, Indreica A, Janssen JA, Jedrzejek B, Jentsch A, Jürgens N, Kącki Z, Kapfer J, Karger DN, Kavgacı A, Kearsley E, Kessler M, Khanina L, Killeen T, Korolyuk A, Kreft H, Kühl HS, Kuzemko A, Landucci F, Lengyel A, Lens F, Lingner DV, Liu H, Lysenko T, Mahecha MD, Marcenò C, Martynenko V, Moeslund JE, Monteagudo Mendoza A, Mucina L, Müller JV, Munzinger J, Naqinezhad A, Noroozi J, Nowak A, Onyshchenko V, Overbeck GE, Pärtel M, Pauchard A, Peet RK, Peñuelas J, Pérez-Haase A, Peterka T, Petřík P, Peyre G, Phillips OL, Prokhorov V, Rašomavičius V, Revermann R, Rivas-Torres G, Rodwell JS, Ruprecht E, Rūsiņa S, Samimi C, Schmidt M, Schrodt F, Shan H, Shirokikh P, Šibík J, Šilc U, Sklenář P, Škvorc Ž, Sparrow B, Sperandii MG, Stančić Z, Svenning JC, Tang Z, Tang CQ, Tsiripidis I, Vanselow K, Vásquez Martínez R, Vassilev K, Vélez-Martin E, Venanzoni R, Vibrans AC, Violle C, Virtanen R, von Wehrden H, Wagner V, Walker DA, Waller DM, Wang HF, Wesche K, Whitfeld TJ, Willner W, Wiser SK, Wohlgemuth T, Yamalov S, Zobel M, Bruelheide H (2021)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2021

Journal

DOI: 10.1111/geb.13346

Abstract

Motivation: Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co-occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots have been recorded, most are not available to the global research community. A recent initiative, called ‘sPlot’, compiled the first global vegetation plot database, and continues to grow and curate it. The sPlot database, however, is extremely unbalanced spatially and environmentally, and is not open-access. Here, we address both these issues by (a) resampling the vegetation plots using several environmental variables as sampling strata and (b) securing permission from data holders of 105 local-to-regional datasets to openly release data. We thus present sPlotOpen, the largest open-access dataset of vegetation plots ever released. sPlotOpen can be used to explore global diversity at the plant community level, as ground truth data in remote sensing applications, or as a baseline for biodiversity monitoring. Main types of variable contained: Vegetation plots (n = 95,104) recording cover or abundance of naturally co-occurring vascular plant species within delimited areas. sPlotOpen contains three partially overlapping resampled datasets (c. 50,000 plots each), to be used as replicates in global analyses. Besides geographical location, date, plot size, biome, elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation type, naturalness, coverage of various vegetation layers, and source dataset, plot-level data also include community-weighted means and variances of 18 plant functional traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. Spatial location and grain: Global, 0.01–40,000 m². Time period and grain: 1888–2015, recording dates. Major taxa and level of measurement: 42,677 vascular plant taxa, plot-level records. Software format: Three main matrices (.csv), relationally linked.

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv) Germany (DE) University of Picardie Jules Verne / Université de Picardie Jules Verne France (FR) University of Montpellier / Université Montpellier France (FR) Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research New Zealand (NZ) Masaryk University Czech Republic (CZ) Universiteit Gent (UGent) / Ghent University Belgium (BE) University of Nottingham United Kingdom (GB) Microsoft Corporation United States (USA) (US) Aarhus University Denmark (DK) Missouri Botanical Garden / Jardin Botanico Missouri Peru (PE) Murdoch University Australia (AU) Royal Botanic Gardens United Kingdom (GB) University of Mazandaran Germany (DE) Universität Wien / University of Vienna Austria (AT) Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) Brazil (BR) University of Tartu Estonia (EE) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill United States (USA) (US) Spanish National Research Council / Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) Spain (ES) University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC) Spain (ES) Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Czech Republic (CZ) M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Ukraine (UA) Central Siberian Botanic Garden / Центральный сибирский ботанический сад Russian Federation (RU) Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Germany (DE) Universität Bayreuth Germany (DE) Palmengarten Frankfurt Germany (DE) University of Zurich / Universität Zürich (UZH) Switzerland (CH) Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology RAS (IMPB RAS) / Институт математических проблем биологии Russian Federation (RU) Babeș-Bolyai University / Babeș–Bolyai Tudományegyetem / Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai (UBB) Romania (RO) Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University (UAGRM) Bolivia, Plurinational State of (BO) University of Latvia Latvia (LV) Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn Germany (DE) Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CULS) / Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze Czech Republic (CZ) University of Pécs / Pécsi Tudományegyetem Hungary (HU) Universidad de Concepcion Chile (CL) Russian Academy of Sciences / Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (RAS) Russian Federation (RU) University of Leeds United Kingdom (GB) Universitetet i Tromsø / The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) Norway (NO) University of Bergen / Universitetet i Bergen Norway (NO) NIBIO - Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research Norway (NO) Universität Hamburg (UHH) Germany (DE) Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft (WSL) Switzerland (CH) Universidad San Francisco de Quito Ecuador (EC) Karabük University / Karabük Üniversitesi Turkey (TR) Universidade Regional de Blumenau (FURB) Brazil (BR) Peking University (PKU) / 北京大学 China (CN) Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences / Ботанический институт им. В.Л.Комарова РАН Russian Federation (RU) Universität Rostock Germany (DE) Universidad de Oviedo Spain (ES) Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie / Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Germany (DE) Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) Germany (DE) Santa Clara University United States (USA) (US) Shahjalal University of Science and Technology Bangladesh (BD) University of Belgrade / Универзитет у Београду Serbia (RS) Università degli Studi Roma Tre Italy (IT) Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research / Istituto superiore per la protezione e la ricerca ambientale (ISPRA) Italy (IT) Naturalis Biodiversity Center / Nederlands Centrum voor Biodiversiteit Naturalis Netherlands (NL) Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue Canada (CA) Ilex Consultoria Cientifica Ltda Brazil (BR) Kazan (Volga region) Federal University / Казанский (Приволжский) федеральный университет Russian Federation (RU) Nature Research Centre (NRC) / Gamtos tyrimų centrą Lithuania (LT) Ufa Federal Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences Russian Federation (RU) Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics of Ufa Scientific Centre Russian Federation (RU) Institute of Botany SAS / Botanický ústav SAV Slovakia (SK) University of Basque Country / Universidad del Pais Vasco (UPV) / Euskal Herriko Unibersitatea (EHU) Spain (ES) University of Gothenburg / Göteborgs universitet Sweden (SE) Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Bulgaria (BG) Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ZRC SAZU Slovenia (SI) Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Spain (ES) Università degli studi "La Sapienza" Italy (IT) Canadian Forest Service (CFS) / Service canadien des forêts Canada (CA) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign United States (USA) (US) Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie Marine et Continentale (IMBE) / Mediterranean Institute of Marine and Terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecology France (FR) CEU San Pablo University / Universidad CEU San Pablo Spain (ES) Multidisciplinary Institute of Plant Biology / Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal (IMBIV) Argentina (AR) University of Adelaide Australia (AU) Free University of Bozen - Bolzano Italy (IT) Institute of Ecology of Volga River Basin Russian Federation (RU) Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences / Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (SLU) Sweden (SE) Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje / Универзитет „Св. Кирил и Методиј“ во Скопје Republic of North Macedonia (MK) Research Institute for Nature and Forest / Instituut voor Natuur- en Bosonderzoek (INBO) Belgium (BE) University of Patras (UPATRAS) Greece (GR) King Saud University (KSU) / جامعة الملك سعود‎‎ Saudi Arabia (SA) University of Arizona United States (USA) (US) Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf Germany (DE) Centre for Ecological Research / Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Ökológiai Kutatóközpontja (MTA ÖK) Hungary (HU) Polska Akademia Nauk (PAN) / Polish Academy of Sciences Poland (PL) Université de Strasbourg (UDS) France (FR) Wageningen University & Research Netherlands (NL) Google Ireland Limited Ireland (IE) University of Minnesota (UMN) United States (USA) (US) University of Zagreb / Sveučilište u Zagrebu Croatia (HR) Yunnan University China (CN) Università degli Studi di Perugia Italy (IT) Leuphana Universität Lüneburg Germany (DE) University of Alberta Canada (CA) University of Alaska Fairbanks United States (USA) (US) University of Wisconsin - Madison United States (USA) (US) Hainan Medical University (HMU) / 海南医学院 China (CN) Universidad de los Andes - Colombia Colombia (CO) Univerzita Karlova v Praze / Charles University in Prague Czech Republic (CZ) Universidad de Chile Chile (CL) Cirad France (FR) ASES Ecological and Sustainable Services France (FR) Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität (WWU) Münster Germany (DE) Transilvania University of Brasov / Universitatea Transilvania din Brașov Romania (RO) University of Wroclaw / Uniwersytet Wrocławski Poland (PL)

How to cite

APA:

Sabatini, F.M., Lenoir, J., Hattab, T., Arnst, E.A., Chytrý, M., Dengler, J.,... Bruelheide, H. (2021). sPlotOpen – An environmentally balanced, open-access, global dataset of vegetation plots. Global Ecology and Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13346

MLA:

Sabatini, Francesco Maria, et al. "sPlotOpen – An environmentally balanced, open-access, global dataset of vegetation plots." Global Ecology and Biogeography (2021).

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