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5,828 results for “Traits”
Data from: Defining a spectrum of integrative trait-based vegetation canopy structural types
Vegetation canopy structure is a fundamental characteristic of terrestrial ecosystems that defines vegetation types and drives ecosystem functioning. We use the multivariate structural trait composition of vegetation canopies to classify ecosystems within a global canopy structure spectrum. Across the temperate forest subset of this spectrum we assess gradients in canopy structural traits, characterize canopy structural types (CST), and evaluate drivers and functional consequences of canopy structural variation. We derive CSTs from multivariate canopy structure data, illustrating variation along three primary structural axes and resolution into six largely distinct and functionally relevant CSTs. Our results illustrate that within-ecosystem successional processes and disturbance legacies can produce variation in canopy structure similar to that associated with sub-continental variation in forest types and ecoclimatic zones. The potential to classify ecosystems into CSTs based on suites of structural traits represents an important advance in understanding and modeling structure-function relationships in vegetated ecosystems.
Data from: Feeding environment and other traits shape species' roles in marine food webs
Food webs and meso-scale motifs allow us to understand the structure of ecological communities and define species' roles within them. This species-level perspective on networks permits tests for relationships between species' traits and their patterns of direct and indirect interactions. Such relationships could allow us to predict food-web structure based on more easily-obtained trait information. Here we calculated the roles of species (as vectors of motif position frequencies) in six well-resolved marine food webs and identified the motif positions associated with the greatest variation in species' roles. We then tested whether the frequencies of these positions varied with species' traits. Despite the coarse-grained traits we used, our approach identified several strong associations between traits and motifs. Feeding environment was a key trait in our models and may shape species' roles by affecting encounter probabilities. Incorporating environment into future food web models may improve predictions of an unknown network structure.
Data from: Plant trait response of tundra shrubs to permafrost and nutrient addition
<p>Plants may alter their strategies, such as growth and resource acquisition, as a result of climate change, especially in areas like the Arctic. These changes might affect in turn ecosystem functions and vegetation-climate interactions. Plant traits reflect both strategies and plant trade-offs in response to environmental conditions. In combination with observational data, experiments mimicking future climate conditions and data involving multiple leaf and stem traits, can contribute to a better mechanistic understanding of feedbacks between shrub growth strategies, permafrost thaw and carbon and energy fluxes.</p> <p>This dataset contains both metadata and plant trait data measured in individuals of four arctic shrub species under experimental conditions. The permafrost thaw and fertilization experiment (Peng et al., 2017) ran for four years (2011-2014) in the nature reserve of Kytalyk, north-eastern Siberia (70°49'N, 147°28'E). The shrub species, dominant at the research site, were the deciduous species <em>Betula nana</em> ssp. <em>exilis</em> (Sukazcev) Hultén and <em>Salix pulchra</em> Cham., and the evergreen species <em>Ledum palustre</em> ssp. <em>decumbens</em> (Aiton) Hultén and <em>Vaccinium vitis-idaea</em> L.</p>
Data from: Management actions shape dung beetle community structure and functional traits in restored tallgrass prairie
<p>1. Ecosystem restoration often focuses on reestablishing species richness and diversity of native organisms, especially plants. However, effective restoration requires re-establishment of ecosystem functions and processes by all trophic levels. Functional trait descriptions of communities, including decomposer communities, may provide more comprehensive evaluations of restoration activities and management than taxonomic community metrics alone.</p> <p>2. We examined species and functional trait composition of dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae, Geotrupidae) communities across a 3-31 year chronosequence of restored prairies, in which sites varied in the presence of re-introduced bison and prescribed fire. We calculated functional diversity metrics and community-weighted mean trait values using behavioral and morphological measurements. We also performed a dung decomposition experiment to measure an ecosystem function driven by these insects.</p> <p>3. Bison presence doubled beetle abundance and increased richness by 50%. Shannon diversity increased with restoration age, nearly doubling from the youngest to oldest restorations. Functional diversity was unchanged, except functional richness, which was reduced by bison and fire presence. Beetles were, on average, smaller in older restorations, although this pattern was weaker when bison were present.</p> <p>4. Dung decomposition was unaffected by site characteristics but increased with community weighted mean beetle mass. Dung decomposition was better predicted by mean trait values, suggesting that supporting large-bodied species may be more important than species diversity in settings where maximizing decomposition function is a goal.</p> <p>5. Restoration managers should consider dung beetle communities and their functional characteristics when making management decisions, particularly where large grazers are a component of management strategies.</p> <p> </p>
Inferring the effect of species interactions on trait evolution
Models of trait evolution form an important part of macroevolutionary biology. The Brownian motion model and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models have become classic (null) models of character evolution, in which species evolve independently. Recently, models incorporating species interactions have been developed, particularly involving competition where abiotic factors pull species toward an optimal trait value and competitive interactions drive the trait values apart. However, these models assume a fitness function rather than derive it from population dynamics and they do not consider dynamics of the trait variance. Here we develop a general coherent trait evolution framework where the fitness function is based on a model of population dynamics, and therefore it can, in principle, accommodate any type of species interaction. We illustrate our framework with a model of abundance-dependent competitive interactions against a macroevolutionary background encoded in a phylogenetic tree. We develop an inference tool based on Approximate Bayesian Computation and test it on simulated data (of traits at the tips). We find that inference performs well when the diversity predicted by the parameters equals the number of species in the phylogeny. We then fit the model to empirical data of baleen whale body lengths, using three different summary statistics, and compare it to a model without population dynamics and a model where competition depends on the total metabolic rate of the competitors. We show that the unweighted model performs best for the least informative summary statistic, while the model with competition weighted by the total metabolic rate fits the data slightly better than the other two models for the two more informative summary statistics. Regardless of the summary statistic used, the three models substantially differ in their predictions of the abundance distribution. Therefore, data on abundance distributions will allow us to better distinguish the models from one another, and infer the nature of species interactions. Thus our framework provides a conceptual approach to reveal species interactions underlying trait evolution and identifies the data needed to do so in practice.
Data from: Genome duplication effects on functional traits and fitness are genetic context and species dependent: studies of synthetic polyploid Fragaria
PREMISE OF THE STUDY Divergence in functional traits and adaptive responses to environmental change underlies the ecological advantage of polyploid plants in the wild. While established polyploids may benefit from combined outcomes of genome doubling, hybridization and polyploidy-enabled adaptive evolution, it remains less clear whether genome doubling alone can drive ecological divergence or whether the outcome is genetically variable.METHODS Using synthetic, colchicine-induced, autotetraploid (4x) plants derived from self-pollinated diploid (2x) seeds, and their colchicine-treated but unconverted diploid (2x.nc) full sibs from two diploid wild strawberry taxa (Fragaria vesca ssp. vesca and F. vesca ssp. bracteata), we examined the effects of genome doubling on functional traits, heat stress tolerance and fitness components across taxa and maternal families (i.e. genetic families) within taxa.KEY RESULTS Comparisons between 2x and 2x.nc plants indicated a negligible effect of colchicine treatment on functional traits. Genome doubling increased stomatal length, and decreased stomatal density, specific leaf area and leaf vein density, recapitulating patterns observed in wild polyploid Fragaria. Trichome density, heat stress tolerance and relative growth rate were not significantly affected by genome doubling. Although a reduction in clonal reproduction was observed in response to genome doubling, this effect was strongly genetic family dependent.CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that genome doubling during incipient speciation alone can generate ecological divergence and variation among genetic lineages. This response potentially allows for rapid short-term evolutionary adaptation and fuels genomic diversity and independent origins of polyploidy.
Data from: Functional diversity enhances, but exploitative traits reduce tree mixture effects on microbial biomass
1. Soil microorganisms play key roles in terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Despite recent progress in elucidating the association between plant diversity and soil microorganisms, it remains unclear whether the functional properties of plant mixtures might alter this association. 2. We examined whether the effects of tree species mixtures on soil microbial biomass were impacted by the functional diversity (FD) and community-weighted-mean (CWM) of tree mixtures, by conducting a global meta-analysis involving 123 paired observations of tree mixtures and the corresponding monocultures from 38 studies in forests. 3. We found that the tree mixture effect on microbial biomass increased with the FD of specific leaf area (SLA), leaf N and P content, as well as the FD based on all of these traits plus leaf dry matter content. Meanwhile, the responses of microbial biomass to tree mixtures decreased with the CWM of SLA, leaf N, and P content. The effects of FD and CWM remained consistent, despite variable tree species richness, stand age and climatic factors. 4. Our results provide a new insight that the functional properties of plants may alter the magnitude of the association between plant diversity and soil microorganisms.
Quantifying species traits related to oviposition behavior and offspring survival in two important disease vectors
<p>Animals with complex life cycles have traits related to oviposition and juvenile survival that can respond to environmental factors in similar or dissimilar ways. We examined the preference-performance hypothesis (PPH), which states that females lacking parental care select juvenile habitats that maximize fitness, for two ubiquitous mosquito species, <i>Aedes albopictus</i> and <i>Culex quinquefasciatus</i>. Specifically, we examined if environmental factors known to affect larval abundance patterns in the field played a role in the PPH for these species. We first identified important environmental factors from a field survey that predicted larvae across different spatial scales. We then performed two experiments, the first testing the independent responses of oviposition and larval survival to these environmental factors, followed by a combined experiment where initial oviposition decisions were allowed to affect larval life history measures. We used path analysis for this last experiment to determine important links among factors in explaining egg numbers, larval mass, development time, and survival. For separate trials, <i>Aedes albopictus</i> displayed congruence between oviposition and larval survival, however <i>C. quinquefasciatus</i> did not. For the combined experiment path analysis suggested neither species completely fit predictions of the PPH, with density dependent effects of initial egg number on juvenile performance in <i>A. albopictus</i>. For these species the consequences of female oviposition choices on larval performance do not appear to fit expectations of the PPH. </p>
Evolution of morphological but not aggressiveness‐related traits following a major resistance breakdown in the poplar rust fungus, Melampsora larici‐populina
<p>Crop varieties carrying qualitative resistance to targeted pathogens lead to strong selection pressure on parasites, often resulting in resistance breakdown. It is well known that qualitative resistance breakdowns modify pathogen population structure but few studies have analysed the consequences on their quantitative aggressiveness-related traits. The aim of this study was to characterize the evolution of these traits following a resistance breakdown in the poplar rust fungus, <i>Melampsora larici-populina</i>. We based our experiment on three temporal populations sampled just before the breakdown event, immediately after and four years later. First, we quantified phenotypic differences among populations for a set of aggressiveness traits on a universally susceptible cultivar (infection efficiency, latent period, lesion size, mycelium quantity, and sporulation rate) and one morphological trait (mean spore volume). Then we estimated heritability to establish which traits could be subjected to adaptive evolution, and tested for evidence of selection. Our results revealed significant changes in the morphological trait but no variation in aggressiveness traits. By contrast, recent works have demonstrated that quantitative resistance (initially assumed more durable) could be eroded and lead to increased aggressiveness. Hence, this study is one example suggesting that the use of qualitative resistance may be revealed to be less detrimental to long term sustainable crop production.</p>
Relative effects of climate and litter traits on decomposition change with time, climate and trait variability
<div class="WordSection1"> <ol> <li><span>Climate and litter quality drive litter decomposition, but there is currently little consensus on their relative importance, likely because studies differ in the duration, the climatic gradients, and variability in litter-trait values. Understanding these drivers is important because they determine the direct and indirect (via vegetation composition) effects of climate change on decomposition and thereby on carbon and nutrient cycling. </span></li> <li><span>We studied how microclimate (soil moisture and temperature) and litter traits interactively affect litter mass loss, by using a reciprocal litter translocation experiment along a large climatic gradient in Chile. We followed decomposition for two years and used 30 plant species with a wide spectrum of functional-trait values.</span></li> <li><span>Litter traits had a strong impact on litter decomposition across the gradient, while an increase in decomposition with soil moisture was observed only in the wettest climates. Overall, soil moisture increased considerably in importance, relative to trait effects, at later decomposition stages, from ca. 15% of the importance of traits after 3 and 6 months to ca. 110% after 24 months. Moreover, analyzing subsets of the 30 species showed that trait effects on litter decomposition gained in importance when including a greater variation in trait values.</span></li> <li><span><i>Synthesis.</i> The relative effects of litter traits and climate on decomposition depend on the ranges in climate and litter traits considered and change with time. Our study emphasizes the critical role of representative ranges in climate and functional trait values for understanding the drivers of litter decomposition and for improving predictions of climate-change effects on this important ecosystem process.</span></li> </ol> </div>
Data From: Contrasting physiological traits of shade tolerance in Pinus and Podocarpaceae native to a tropical Vietnamese forest: Insight from an aberrant flat-leaved pine
<p>The absence of pines from tropical forests is a puzzling biogeographical oddity potentially explained by traits of shade intolerance. <i>Pinus krempfii</i>, a flat-leaved pine endemic to the Central Highlands of Vietnam, provides a notable exception as it seems to successfully compete with shade-tolerant tropical species. Here, we test the hypothesis that successful conifer performance at the juvenile stage depends on physiological traits of shade tolerance by comparing the physiological characteristics of <i>P. krempfii </i>to coexisting species from the genus <i>Pinus</i> and from the Podocarpaceae, a relatively abundant and shade tolerant conifer family found in pantropical forests. We examined leaf photosynthetic, respiratory and biochemical traits. Additionally, we compiled attainable maximum photosynthesis, maximum RuBP carboxylation (<i>Vc</i><sub>max</sub>) and maximum electron transport (<i>J</i><sub>max</sub>) values for <i>Pinus</i> and Podocarpaceae species from the literature. In our literature compilation, <i>P. krempfii </i>was intermediate between <i>Pinus</i> and Podocarpaceae in its maximum photosynthesis and its <i>Vc</i><sub>max</sub>. <i>Pinus</i> exhibited a higher <i>Vc</i><sub>max</sub> than Podocarpaceae, resulting in a less steep slope in the linear relationship between <i>J</i><sub>max</sub> and <i>Vc</i><sub>max</sub>. These results suggest that <i>Pinus </i>may be more shade intolerant than Podocarpaceae with <i>P. krempfii </i>falling between the two groups. However, in contrast, Vietnamese conifers' leaf mass per areas and biochemical traits did not highlight the same intermediate nature of <i>P. krempfii</i>. Furthermore, regardless of leaf shape or family assignation, all species demonstrated a common carbon gain efficiency. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of shade tolerance for conifer survival in tropical forests. However, they also demonstrate a diversity of shade tolerance strategies, all of which lead to the persistence of Vietnamese juvenile conifers in low-light tropical understories.</p>
Data from: Metabolic rate shapes phenotypic covariance among physiological, behavioural, and life history traits in honeybees
<p>Metabolic rate is often cited as the fundamental rate that determines the rate of all biological processes by shaping energetic availability for the various behavioral and life history traits that contribute to performance. It has therefore been suggested that metabolic rate drives the widely observed covariance among these different levels of phenotypic traits. However, much of the work on this topic has relied on pairwise correlational analysis, thereby leaving an important gap in our understanding regarding the functional links that shape this phenotypic covariance, often referred to as pace-of-life. Using honeybees as an experimental model, we measured a large number of behavioural, life history and physiological traits in individual bees and used a structural equation model to characterize the phenotypic covariance structure among these traits. Following this with a path analysis, we demonstrate that variation in metabolic rate plays a fundamental proximate role in driving this phenotypic covariance structure in honeybees. We discuss the importance of these findings in the context of how interindividual variation in terms of slow-fast phenotypes may drive the phenotype of a group and the functional role metabolic rate might play in shaping division of labour and social evolution.</p>
Data from: Trait matching and phenological overlap increase the spatio-temporal stability and functionality of plant-pollinator interactions
<p>Morphology and phenology influence plant-pollinator network structure, but whether they generate more stable pairwise interactions with higher pollination success is unknown. Here we evaluate the importance of morphological trait matching, phenological overlap and specialisation for the spatio-temporal stability (measured as variability) of plant-pollinator interactions and for pollination success, while controlling for species abundance. To this end, we combined a six-year plant-pollinator interaction dataset, with information on species traits, phenologies, specialisation, abundance and pollination success, into structural equation models. Interactions among abundant plants and pollinators with well-matched traits and phenologies formed the stable and functional backbone of the pollination network, whereas poorly-matched interactions were variable in time and had lower pollination success. We conclude that phenological overlap could be more useful for predicting changes in species interactions than species abundances, and that non-random extinction of species with well-matched traits could decrease the stability of interactions within communities and reduce their functioning.</p>
Short-term heritable variation overwhelms two hundred generations of mutational variance for metabolic traits in Caenorhabditis elegans
<p>Metabolic disorders have a large heritable component, and have increased markedly in human populations over the past few generations. Genome-wide association studies of metabolic traits typically find a substantial unexplained fraction of total heritability, suggesting an important role of spontaneous mutation. An alternative explanation is that epigenetic effects contribute significantly to the heritable variation. Here we report a study designed to quantify the cumulative effects of spontaneous mutation on adenosine metabolism in the nematode <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>, including both the activity and concentration of two metabolic enzymes and the standing pools of their associated metabolites. The only prior studies on the effects of mutation on metabolic enzyme activity, in <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>, found that total enzyme activity presents a mutational target similar to that of morphological and life-history traits. However, those studies were not designed to account for short-term heritable effects. We find that the short-term heritable variance for most traits is of similar magnitude as the variance among MA lines. This result suggests that the potential heritable effects of epigenetic variation in metabolic disease warrant additional scrutiny.</p>
Below- and aboveground traits explain local abundance, and regional, continental and global occurrence frequencies of grassland plants
<p>1. Plants vary widely in how common or rare they are, but whether commonness of species is associated with functional traits is still debated. This might partly be because commonness can be measured at different spatial scales, and because most studies focus solely on aboveground functional traits.</p> <p>2. We measured five root traits and seed mass on 241 Central European grassland species, and extracted their specific leaf area, height, mycorrhizal status and bud-bank size from databases. Then we tested if trait values are associated with commonness at seven spatial scales, ranging from abundance in 16-m² grassland plots, via regional and European-wide occurrence frequencies, to worldwide naturalization success.</p> <p>3. At every spatial scale, commonness was associated with at least three traits. The traits explained the greatest proportions of variance for abundance in grassland plots (42%) and naturalization success (41%), and the least for occurrence frequencies in Europe and the Mediterranean (2%). Low root tissue density characterized common species at every scale, whereas other traits showed directional changes depending on the scale. We also found that many of the effects had significant non-linear effects, in most cases with the highest commonness-metric value at intermediate trait values. Across scales, belowground traits explained overall more variance in species commonness (19.4%) than aboveground traits (12.6%).</p> <p>4. The changes we found in the relationships between traits and commonness, when going from one spatial scale to another, could at least partly explain the maintenance of trait variation in nature. Most importantly, our study shows that within grasslands, belowground traits are at least as important as aboveground traits for species commonness. Therefore, belowground traits should be more frequently considered in studies on plant functional ecology.</p>
Does the spatial sorting of dispersal traits affect the phenotype of the non-dispersing stages of the invasive frog Xenopus laevis through coupling?
<p>Over ten weeks, we surveyed the development of <em>X. laevis</em> tadpoles in the French invasive range by conducting experiments in outdoor mesocosms and in laboratory microcosms, from free-swimming larvae to metamorphosis. We tested the effect of the location of the parental pond in the colonised range (core or periphery) on morphological traits related to dispersal (SVL and hind limb length), time to metamorphosis (development) and survival to metamorphosis. This excel spreadsheet contains the metadata and data spreadsheets used in the analysis. In addition to the first metadata sheet, the file contains nine additional sheets each containing data used in the separate analysis as outlined in the manuscript. </p>
Data from: Trait-based variation in host contribution to pathogen transmission across species and resource supplies
<p>Two key knowledge gaps currently limit the development of more predictive and general models of pathogen transmission: (1) the physiological basis of heterogeneity in host contribution to pathogen transmission (reservoir potential) remains poorly understood, and (2) a general means of integrating the ecological dynamics of host communities has yet to emerge. If the traits responsible for differences in reservoir potential also modulate host community dynamics, these traits could be used to predict pathogen transmission as host communities change. In two greenhouse experiments, across 23 host species and two levels of resource supply, the reservoir potential of plant hosts increased significantly along the Leaf Economic Spectrum, a global axis of plant physiological trait covariation that features prominently in models of plant community ecology. This indicates that the traits of the Leaf Economic Spectrum underlie broad differences in reservoir potential across host species and resource supplies. Therefore, host traits could be used to integrate epidemiological models of pathogen transmission with ecological models of host community change.</p>
Pupillary responses obey Emmert's law and co-vary with autistic traits
<p>This dataset is reported in the manuscript published in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders</p>
Data from: Integration and harmonization of trait data from plant individuals across heterogeneous sources
<p>Trait data represent the basis for ecological and evolutionary research and have relevance for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and earth system modelling. The collection and mobilization of trait data has strongly increased over the last decade, but many trait databases still provide only species-level, aggregated trait values (e.g. ranges, means) and lack the direct observations on which those data are based. Thus, the vast majority of trait data measured directly from individuals remains hidden and highly heterogeneous, impeding their discoverability, semantic interoperability, digital accessibility and (re-)use. Here, we integrate quantitative measurements of verbatim trait information from plant individuals (e.g. lengths, widths, counts and angles of stems, leaves, fruits and inflorescence parts) from multiple sources such as field observations and herbarium collections. We develop a workflow to harmonize heterogeneous trait measurements (e.g. trait names and their values and units) as well as additional information related to taxonomy, measurement or fact and occurrence. This data integration and harmonization builds on vocabularies and terminology from existing metadata standards and ontologies such as the Ecological Trait-data Standard (ETS), the Darwin Core (DwC), the Thesaurus Of Plant characteristics (TOP) and the Plant Trait Ontology (TO). A metadata form filled out by data providers enables the automated integration of trait information from heterogeneous datasets. We illustrate our tools with data from palms (family Arecaceae), a globally distributed (pantropical), diverse plant family that is considered a good model system for understanding the ecology and evolution of tropical rainforests. We mobilize nearly 140,000 individual palm trait measurements in an interoperable format, identify semantic gaps in existing plant trait terminology and provide suggestions for the future development of a thesaurus of plant characteristics. Our work thereby promotes the semantic integration of plant trait data in a machine-readable way and shows how large amounts of small trait data sets and their metadata can be integrated into standardized data products.</p>
Does recent fire activity impact fire-related traits of Pinus halepensis Mill. and Pinus sylvestris L. in the French Mediterranean area?
<p>Data used for analyses in the paper by Romero B. and Ganteaume A., published in Annals of Forest Science in 2020.</p> <p>PS : <em>Pinus sylvestris</em></p> <p>PH : <em>Pinus halepensis</em></p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.