Data from: Climate, soil resources and microbial activity shape the distributions of mountain plants based on their functional traits

<p>While soil ecosystems undergo important modi cations due to global change, the e ect of soil properties on plant distributions is still poorly understood. Plant growth is not only controlled by soil physico-chemistry but also by microbial activities through the decomposition of organic matter and the recycling of nutrients essential for plants. A growing body of evidence also suggests that plant functional traits modulate spe- cies' response to environmental gradients. However, no study has yet contrasted the importance of soil physico-chemistry, microbial activities and climate on plant species distributions, while accounting for how plant functional traits can in uence species- speci c responses.</p> <p>Using hierarchical e ects in a multi-species distribution model, we investigate how<br> four functional traits related to resource acquisition (plant height, leaf carbon to nitro-<br> gen ratio, leaf dry matter content and speci c leaf area) modulate the response of<br> 44 plant species to climatic variables, soil physico-chemical properties and microbial 100 decomposition activity (i.e. exoenzymatic activities) in the French Alps.</p> <p>Our hierarchical trait-based model allowed to predict well 41 species according to the TSS statistic. In addition to climate, the combination of soil C/N, as a measure of organic matter quality, and exoenzymatic activity, as a measure of microbial decom- position activity, strongly improved predictions of plant distributions. Plant traits played an important role. In particular, species with conservative traits performed bet- ter under limiting nutrient conditions but were outcompeted by exploitative plants in more favorable environments.</p> <p>We demonstrate tight associations between microbial decomposition activity, plant functional traits associated to di erent resource acquisition strategies and plant dis- tributions. is highlights the importance of plant–soil linkages for mountain plant distributions. ese results are crucial for biodiversity modelling in a world where both climatic and soil systems are undergoing profound and rapid transformations.</p>