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opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Data from: Dual function and associated costs of a highly exaggerated trait in a cichlid fish

Exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics are apparently costly and seem to defy natural selection. This conundrum prompted Charles Darwin to propose the theory of sexual selection. Accordingly, exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics might be ornaments on which female choice is based and/or armaments used during male-male competition. Males of many cichlid fish species, including the adaptive radiation of Nicaraguan Midas cichlids, develop a highly exaggerated nuchal hump, which is thought to be a sexually selected trait. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a series of behavioral assays in F2 hybrids obtained from crossing a species with a relatively small hump and one with an exaggerated hump. Mate-choice experiments showed a clear female preference for males with large humps. In an open-choice experiment with limited territories, couples including large humped males were more successful in acquiring these territories. Therefore, nuchal humps appear to serve dual functions as an ornament for attracting mates and as an armament for direct contest with rivals. Although being beneficial in terms of sexual selection, this trait also imposes fitness costs on males possessing disproportionally large nuchal humps since they exhibit decreased endurance and increased energetic costs when swimming. We conclude that these costs illustrate trade-offs associated with large hump size between sexual and natural selection, which causes the latter to limit further exaggeration of this spectacular male trait.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Phenotypic traits evolution and morphological traits associated with echolocation calls in cryptic horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae)

Bats provide an excellent case study for studying evolution due to their remarkable flight and echolocation capabilities. In this study, we sought to understand the phenotypic evolution of key traits in Rhinolophidae (horseshoe bats) using phylogenetic comparative methods. We aim to test the phylogenetic signals of traits and evaluated the best-fit evolutionary models given the data for each trait considering different traits may evolve under different models (i.e., Brownian Motion (BM), Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) and Early Burst (EB)) and reconstruct ancestral character states. We examined how phenotypic characters are associated with echolocation calls and minimum detectable prey size. We measured 34 traits of 10 Asian rhinolophids species (187 individuals). We found that the majority of traits showed a high phylogenetic signal based on Blomberg's K and Pagel's λ, but each trait may evolve under different evolutionary models. Sella traits were shown to evolve under stabilizing selection based on OU models, indicating sella traits have the tendency to move forward along the branches toward some medial value in equilibrium. Our findings highlight the importance of sella characters in association with echolocation call emissions in Rhinolophidae, as calls are important for spatial cognition and also influence dietary preferences. Minimum detectable prey size in Rhinolophidae was associated with call frequency, bandwidth, call duration, wingspan and wing surface area. Ultimately, understanding trait evolution requires sensitivity due to the differential selective pressures which may apply to different characteristics.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Eco-evolutionary contributions to community trait change in floating aquatic plants

An entire community of organisms may become modified when its environment changes. These modifications can happen through physiological process (plasticity), evolutionary processes (adaptation) or shifts in species composition (sorting). The outcome of these three sources of change constitutes the community's phenotypic response, but how they combine to drive community trait dynamics is not currently well understood. We have conducted a community selection experiment in which communities of short-lived floating aquatic plants were grown in a range of stressful conditions, and measured changes in their body size. Determinants of phenotypic change were assessed with a full community reciprocal transplant which led to estimates of the contributions of plasticity, adaptation, and sorting. Species were modified during the experiment by both plasticity and adaptation, but in either case the magnitude and direction of change differed among species. Sorting and adaptation were of equal magnitude, but tended to act in opposite directions: in conditions where species with large fronds prevailed, each species evolved smaller fronds, and vice versa. We conclude that community trait dynamics cannot be understood simply by extrapolating the adaptive response of any single species to the whole community.

Australia-wide photosynthetic trait dataset

"Least-cost theory" posits that C3 plants should balance rates of photosynthetic water loss and carboxylation in relation to the relative acquisition and maintenance costs of resources required for these activities. Here we investigated the dependency of photosynthetic traits on climate and soil properties using a new Australia-wide trait dataset spanning 528 species from 67 sites. We tested the hypotheses that plants on relatively cold or dry sites, or on relatively more fertile sites, would typically operate at greater CO2 drawdown (lower ratio of leaf internal to ambient CO2, Ci:Ca) during light-saturated photosynthesis, and at higher leaf N per area (Narea) and higher carboxylation capacity (Vcmax 25) for a given rate of stomatal conductance to water, gsw. These results would be indicative of plants having relatively higher water costs than nutrient costs. In general, our hypotheses were supported. Soil total phosphorus (P) concentration and (more weakly) soil pH exerted positive effects on the Narea-gsw and Vcmax 25-gsw slopes, and negative effects on Ci:Ca. The P effect strengthened when the effect of climate was removed via partial regression. We observed similar trends with increasing soil cation exchange capacity and clay content, which affect soil nutrient availability, and found that soil properties explained similar amounts of variation in the focal traits as climate did. Although climate typically explained more trait variation than soil did, together they explained up to 52% of variation in the slope relationships and soil properties explained up to 30% of the variation in individual traits. Soils influenced photosynthetic traits as well as their coordination. In particular, the influence of soil P likely reflects Australia's geologically ancient low-relief landscapes with highly leached soils. Least-cost theory provides a valuable framework for understanding trade-offs between resource costs and use in plants, including limiting soil nutrients.

Abiotic and biotic drivers of tree trait effects on soil microbial biomass and soil carbon concentration

Forests are critical ecosystems to understand the global carbon budget, due to their carbon sequestration potential in both above- and belowground compartments, especially in species-rich forests. Soil carbon sequestration is strongly linked to soil microbial communities, and this link is mediated by the tree community, likely due to modifications of micro-environmental conditions (i.e., biotic conditions, soil properties, and microclimate). We studied soil carbon concentration and the soil microbial biomass of 180 local neighborhoods along a gradient of tree species richness ranging from 1 to 16 tree species per plot in a Chinese subtropical forest experiment (BEF-China). Tree productivity and different tree functional traits were measured at the neighborhood level. We tested the effects of tree productivity, functional trait identity and dissimilarity on soil carbon concentrations, and their mediation by the soil microbial biomass and micro-environmental conditions. Our analyses showed a strong positive correlation between soil microbial biomass and soil carbon concentrations. Besides, soil carbon concentration increased with tree productivity and tree root diameter while it decreased with litterfall C:N content. Moreover, tree productivity and tree functional traits (e.g. root fungal association and litterfall C:N ratio) modulated micro-environmental conditions with substantial consequences for soil microbial biomass. We also showed that soil history and topography should be considered in future experiments and tree plantations, as soil carbon concentrations were higher where historical (i.e., at the beginning of the experiment) carbon concentrations were high, themselves being strongly affected by the topography. Altogether, these results imply that the quantification of the different soil carbon pools is critical for understanding microbial community–soil carbon stock relationships and their dependence on tree diversity and micro-environmental conditions.

Data from: Season and herbivore defence trait mediate tri-trophic interactions in tropical rainforest

Bottom-up effects from host plants and top-down effects from predators on herbivore abundance and distribution vary with physical environment, plant chemistry, predator and herbivore trait and diversity. Tri-trophic interactions in tropical ecosystems may follow different patterns from temperate ecosystems due to differences in above abiotic and biotic conditions. We sampled leaf-chewing larvae of Lepidoptera (caterpillars) from a dominant host tree species in a seasonal rainforest in Southwest China. We reared out parasitoids and grouped herbivores based on their diet preferences, feeding habits, and defence mechanisms. We compared caterpillar abundance with leaf numbers ('bottom-up' effects) and parasitoid abundance ('top-down' effects) between different seasons and herbivore traits. We found bottom-up effects were stronger than top-down effects. Both bottom-up and top-down effects were stronger in the dry season than in the wet season, which were driven by polyphagous rare species and host plant phenology. Contrary to our predictions, herbivore traits did not influence differences in the bottom-up or top-down effects except for stronger top-down effects for shelter-builders. Our study shows season is the main predictor of the bottom-up and top-down effects in the tropics and highlights the complexity of these interactions.

Timing of hydrologic anomalies direct impacts on migration traits in a flood pulse fishery system

1. Understanding adaptive reservoir management strategies that balance ecological outcomes with other objectives necessitates properly articulated environmental objectives. Aside from flood pulse extent-related metrics, residual-based descriptors provide robust descriptions of fish assemblage structure and harvest. 2. We proposed a model framework based on spectral analysis of hydrologic variation and the Multivariate AutoRegressive State Space (MARSS) model to statistically quantify the effect sizes of hydrologic variation impacts on total fish catch and functional group (migration types) fish harvest and applied it to 17 years of fish harvest data from the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMB). 3. Our findings suggest that duration and timing of hydrologic anomalies matter as much as their magnitude. Anomaly droughts coupled with strong pulse can benefit species if timed correctly. Longitudinal migrators were more sensitive to anomalous floods and droughts than other migratory species. Fish catch projections using effect sizes derived from historical data revealed that a well-timed and protracted flood followed by a powerful flood pulse would be advantageous to the fishery, but a flood delay could negate such benefits. 4. Our results add to a growing body of research that suggests ecological flows can be engineered. For most dams, the rule curve describing reservoir releases and resulting downstream hydrograph is designed in an ecological vacuum in which the objectives are to maximize human services—power production, flood control or navigation. Our work demonstrates that hydrograph can be designed to manage aspects of functional biodiversity directly. Though the exact shape of our hydrograph may not apply to other engineered river systems, we suggest that the approach can be applied generally, and globally both to developed and developing river basins. Specifically, a functional biodiversity rule curve could be optimized as an additional objective function in a multi-objective optimization framework. Our methodology provides a quantitative method for deriving an ecological flow for this larger tradeoff analysis.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2022View details →

Nationwide genomic biobank in Mexico unravels demographic history and complex trait architecture from 6,057 individuals: GWAS summary statistics

Latin America continues to be severely underrepresented in genomics research, and fine-scale genetic histories as well as complex trait architectures remain hidden due to the lack of Big Data. To fill this gap, the Mexican Biobank project genotyped 1.8 million markers in 6,057 individuals from 32 states and 898 sampling localities across Mexico with linked complex trait and disease information creating a valuable nationwide genotype-phenotype database. Through a suite of state-of-the-art methods for ancestry deconvolution and inference of identity-by-descent (IBD) segments, we inferred detailed ancestral histories for the last 200 generations in different Mesoamerican regions, unravelling native and colonial/post-colonial demographic dynamics. We observed large variations in runs of homozygosity (ROH) among genomic regions with different ancestral origins reflecting their demographic histories, which also affect the distribution of rare deleterious variants across Mexico. We analysed a range of biomedical complex traits and identified significant genetic and environmental factors explaining their variation, such as ROH found to be significant predictors for trait variation in BMI and triglycerides. ====================================== This dataset contains GWAS summary statistics for the Mexico Biobank Project. Summary statistics for 22 binary and quantitative traits are provided from the full cohort of 5721 individuals from across Mexico, and a subset of 1061 individuals inferred to have more than 90% Native American ancestry.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2021View details →

Using social media and personality traits to assess software developers' emotions

Companion DATA Title:     Using social media and personality traits to assess software developers' emotions Authors:      Leo Moreira Silva     Marília Gurgel Castro     Miriam Bernardino Silva     Milena Nestor Santos     Uirá Kulesza     Margarida Lima     Henrique Madeira Journal:         PeerJ Computer Science Github:     <a href="https://github.com/leosilva/peerj_computer_science_2022">https://github.com/leosilva/peerj_computer_science_2022</a> ------------------------------------------------------------ The folders contain: Experiment_Protocol.pdf: document that present the protocol regarding recruitment protocol, data collection of public posts from Twitter, criteria for manual analysis, and the assessment of Big Five factors from participants and psychologists. English version. /analysis     analyzed_tweets_by_psychologists.csv: file containing the manual analysis done by psychologists     analyzed_tweets_by_participants.csv: file containing the manual analysis done by participants     analyzed_tweets_by_psychologists_solved_divergencies.csv: file containing the manual analysis done by psychologists over 51 divergent tweets' classifications /dataset     alldata.json: contains the dataset used in the paper /ethics_committee     committee_response_english_version.pdf: contains the acceptance response of Research Ethics and Deontology Committee of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra. English version.     committee_response_original_portuguese_version: contains the acceptance response of Research Ethics and Deontology Committee of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra. Portuguese version.     committee_submission_form_english_version.pdf: the project submitted to the committee. English version.     committee_submission_form_original_portuguese_version.pdf: the project submitted to the committee. Portuguese version.     consent_form_english_version.pdf: declaration of free and informed consent fulfilled by participants. English version.     consent_form_original_portuguese_version.pdf: declaration of free and informed consent fulfilled by participants. Portuguese version.     data_protection_declaration_english_version.pdf: personal data and privacy declaration, according to European Union General Data Protection Regulation. English version.     data_protection_declaration_original_portuguese_version.pdf: personal data and privacy declaration, according to European Union General Data Protection Regulation. Portuguese version. /notebooks     General - Charts.ipynb: notebook file containing all charts produced in the study, including those in the paper     Statistics - Lexicons and Ensembles.ipynb: notebook file with the statistics for the five lexicons and ensembles used in the study     Statistics - Linear Regression.ipynb: notebook file with the multiple linear regression results     Statistics - Polynomial Regression.ipynb: notebook file with the polynomial regression results     Statistics - Psychologists versus Participants.ipynb: notebook file with the statistics between the psychologists and participants manual analysis     Statistics - Working x Non-working.ipynb: notebook file containing the statistical analysis for the tweets posted during work period and those posted outside of working period /surveys     Demographic_Survey_english_version.pdf: survey inviting participants to enroll in the study. We collect demographic data and participants' authorization to access their public Tweet posts. English version.     Demographic_Survey_portuguese_version.pdf: survey inviting participants to enroll in the study. We collect demographic data and participants' authorization to access their public Tweet posts. Portuguese version.     Demographic_Survey_answers.xlsx: participants' demographic survey answers     ibf_pt_br.doc: the Portuguese version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI) instrument to infer participants' Big Five polarity traits.     ibf_en.doc: translation in English of the Portuguese version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI) instrument to infer participants' Big Five polarity traits.     ibf_answers.xlsx: participantes' and psychologists' answers for BFI ------------------------------------------------------------ We have removed from dataset any sensible data to protect participants' privacy and anonymity. We have removed from demographic survey answers any sensible data to protect participants' privacy and anonymity.

Mapping trait versus species turnover reveals spatiotemporal variation in functional redundancy and network robustness in a plant‐pollinator community

1. Functional overlap among species (redundancy) is considered important in shaping competitive and mutualistic interactions that determine how communities respond to environmental change. Most studies view functional redundancy as static, yet traits within species – which ultimately shape functional redundancy – can vary over seasonal or spatial gradients. We therefore have limited understanding of how trait turnover within and between species could lead to changes in functional redundancy or how loss of traits could differentially impact mutualistic interactions depending on where and when the interactions occur in space and time. 2. Using an Arctic bumblebee community as a case study, and 1,277 individual measures from 14 species over three annual seasons, we quantified how inter- and intraspecific body-size turnover compared to species turnover with elevation and over the season. Coupling every individual and their trait with a plant visitation, we investigated how grouping individuals by a morphological trait or by species identity altered our assessment of network structure and how this differed in space and time. Finally, we tested how the sensitivity of the network in space and time differed when simulating extinction of nodes representing either morphological trait similarity or traditional species groups. This allowed us to explore the degree to which trait-based groups increase or decrease interaction redundancy relative to species-based nodes. 3. We found that i) groups of taxonomically and morphologically similar bees turn over in space and time independently from each other, with trait turnover being larger over the season; ii) networks composed of nodes representing species versus morphologically similar bees were structured differently; and iii) simulated loss of bee trait groups caused faster coextinction of bumblebee species and flowering plants than when bee taxonomic groups were lost. Crucially, the magnitude of these effects varied in space and time, highlighting the importance of considering spatiotemporal context when studying the relative importance of taxonomic and trait contributions to interaction network architecture. 4. Our finding that functional redundancy varies spatiotemporally demonstrates how considering the traits of individuals within networks is needed to understand the impacts of environmental variation and extinction on ecosystem functioning and resilience.

opencc-by-4.0Mar 2021View details →

MammalBase — Database of traits, measurements and diets of the species in class Mammalia

MammalBase is a database of traits, measurements and diets of the species in class Mammalia. It also provides Proximate Analysis data for several diet items. MammalBase aims to provide general information on mammals for broad-scale analyses in Macroecology, Palaeontology and mammalian Community structures. The database is maintained at the Natural Sciences Unit of the Finnish Museum of Natural History LUOMUS — a research institution under the University of Helsinki in Finland.

Drought effects on root and shoot traits and their decomposability

1. Drought can induce phenotypic plasticity in a range of plant root and shoot traits. These traits have been shown to explain differences in root and shoot litter decomposability between species. However, it is unknown how drought-induced plasticity of root and shoot traits alters their decomposability. 2. To investigate this issue across a range of species, we grew a grass (Lolium perenne), a forb (Plantago lanceolata) and a legume (Trifolium repens) common to European temperate grasslands and subjected them to a 5-week moderate drought treatment. We compared morphological and chemical root and shoot traits of the droughted plants to well-watered controls. We then conducted a decomposition assay of the senesced root and shoot material over 16 weeks, with mass loss measurements at five timepoints. 3. Drought had significant and sometimes strong effects on morphological and chemical root and shoot traits of all three species, sometimes similar to differences between species and generally in line with a shift to a more resource-conservative strategy. Drought also increased the labile litter fraction in roots of Lolium perenne, which was associated with a substantial increase in non-structural carbohydrates. Drought decreased the labile litter fraction in shoots of Plantago lanceolata, but this could not be explained by the traits we measured. Drought effects on litter decomposability were weaker than on plant traits. 4. Our results suggest that plant trait-mediated effects of drought on litter decomposability can either increase or decrease vegetation feedbacks to climate change. They also show that drought-induced plasticity in root and shoot traits does not automatically translate into equivalent changes in litter decomposability.

A direct comparison of ecological theories for predicting the relationship between plant traits and growth

Despite long-standing theory for classifying plant ecological strategies, limited data directly links organismal traits to whole-plant growth rates. We compared trait-growth relationships based on three prominent theories: growth analysis, Grime's competitive-stress tolerant-ruderal (CSR) triangle, and the leaf economics spectrum (LES). Under these schemes, growth is hypothesized to be predicted by traits related to relative biomass investment, leaf structure or gas exchange, respectively. We also considered traits not included in these theories, but that might provide potential alternative best predictors of growth. In phylogenetic analyses of 30 diverse milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) and 21 morphological and physiological traits, growth rate (total biomass produced per day) varied 50-fold and was best predicted by biomass allocation to leaves (as predicted by growth analysis) and the CSR traits of leaf size and leaf dry matter content. Total leaf area and plant height were also excellent predictors of whole-plant growth rate. Despite two LES traits correlating with growth (mass-based leaf nitrogen and area-based leaf phosphorus contents), these were in the opposite direction predicted by LES, such that higher N and P contents corresponded to slower growth. The remaining LES traits (e.g., leaf gas exchange) were not predictive of plant growth rates. Overall, differences in growth rate were driven more by whole-plant characteristics such as biomass fractions and total leaf area than individual leaf-level traits such as photosynthetic rate or specific leaf area. Our results are most consistent with classical growth analysis - combining leaf traits with whole-plant allocation to best predict growth. However, given that destructive biomass measures are often not feasible, applying easy-to-measure leaf traits associated with the CSR classification appear more predictive of whole plant growth than LES traits. Testing the generality of this result across additional taxa would further improve our ability to predict whole-plant growth from functional traits across scales.

Trait adaptation enhances species coexistence and reduces bistability in an intraguild predation module

Disentangling how species coexist in an intraguild predation (IGP) module is a great step towards understanding biodiversity conservation in complex natural food webs. Trait variation enabling individual species to adjust to ambient conditions may facilitate coexistence. However, it is still unclear how co-adaptation of all species within the IGP module, constrained by complex trophic interactions and trade-offs among species-specific traits, interactively affects species coexistence and population dynamics. We developed an adaptive IGP model allowing prey and predator species to mutually adjust their species-specific defensive and offensive strategies to each other. We investigated species persistence, the temporal variation of population dynamics, and the occurrence of bistability in IGP models without and with trait adaptation along a gradient of enrichment represented by carrying capacity of the basal prey for different widths and speeds of trait adaptation within each species. Results showed that trait adaptation within multiple species greatly enhanced the coexistence of all three species in the module. A larger width of trait adaptation facilitated species coexistence independent of the speed of trait adaptation at lower enrichment levels, while a sufficiently large and fast trait adaptation promoted species coexistence at higher enrichment levels. Within the oscillating regime, increasing the speed of trait adaptation reduced the temporal variability of biomasses of all species. Finally, species co-adaptation strongly reduced the presence of bistability and promoted the attractor with all three species coexisting. These findings resolve the contradiction between the widespread occurrence of IGP in nature and the theoretical predictions that IGP should only occur under restricted conditions and lead to unstable population dynamics, which broadens the mechanisms presumably underlying the maintenance of IGP modules in nature. Generally, this study demonstrates a decisive role of mutual adaptation among complex trophic interactions, for enhancing interspecific diversity and stabilizing food web dynamics, arising e.g. from intraspecific diversity.

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2023View details →

Resampling alpine herbarium records reveals changes in plant traits over space and time - dataset

Data overview: These data correspond to the analyses conducted for the article "Resampling alpine herbarium records reveals changes in plant traits over space and time" by Francesca Jaroszynska, Christian Rixen, Sarah Woodin, Jonathan Lenoir and Sonja Wipf, in Journal of Ecology Metadata for jaroszynska_herbarium_traits_data.csv: date = date; date of collection time = factor; time of collection (historical or recent) elevation = numerical; elevation in metres above sea level of the sample collection site selevation = numerical; scaled elevation selevation2 = numerical; elevation in metres above sea level of sample collection site (elevation/1000). sSlope = numerical; scaled slope (slope/10) slope = numerical; computed slope based on elevation trait = string; name of the measured trait <ul> <li> crFlowerN = numerical; Cardamine resedifolia; number of flowers </li> <li> crHeight = numerical; Cardamine resedifolia; plant height </li> <li> crLeafL = numerical; Cardamine resedifolia; length of longest leaf </li> <li> crRosetteLeafN = numerical; Cardamine resedifolia; number of leaves in rosette </li> <li> paBasalLeafL = numerical; Poa alpina; basal leaf length </li> <li> paInflorescenceL = numerical; Poa alpina; inflorescence length </li> <li> paHeight = numerical; Poa alpina; plant height </li> <li> pvInfL = numerical; Polygonum viviparum; length of inflorescence </li> <li> pvLA = numerical; Polygonum viviparum; leaf area (length x width) </li> <li> pvLeafL = numerical; Polygonum viviparum; leaf length </li> <li> pvRepH= numerical; Polygonum viviparum; plant height </li> <li> rgFlowerStemL = numerical; Ranunculus glacialis; flowering stem length </li> <li> rgLeafStemL = numerical; Ranunculus glacialis; petiole length </li> <li> rgLeafW = numerical; Ranunculus glacialis; leaf width </li> <li> rgFlowerN = integer; Ranunculus glacialis; number of flowers </li> </ul>   traitGroup = factor; the group to which each trait belongs (VegHeight = vegetative height, ReprHeight = reproductive height, ReprOut = reproductive output, PhotoCap = photosynthetic capacity) value = numerical; value of the trait measured species = factor; species code (car_res = Cardamine resedifolia, ran_glac = Ranunculus glacialis, pol_viv = Polygonum viviparum, poa_alp = Poa alpina) transect = string; transect along which the herbarium sample was taken confidence = factor; reliability of the metadata associated with the herbarium sample, assigned by the authors Jaroszynska and Wipf (low, medium, high) northness = numerical; northness eastness = numerical; eastness observer = string; botanist who conducted the collection sheet = string; unique identifier for the collection sheet   Metadata for jaroszynska_climate_traits_data.csv: year = year; year of sample collection Month = integer; month of sample colection Temperature = numerical; monthly average temperature (ºC) Precipitation = numerical; monthly total precipitation (mm) yearMonth = string; year.month season = factor; season associated to the corresponding month (spring, summer, autumn, winter) timePeriod = factor; climate period referring to the time before, after, or during the baseline reference period (see article for further details) meanAnnTemp = numerical; mean annual temperature (ºC) sumAnnPrecip = numerical; total annual precipitation (mm) meanSeaTemp = numerical; mean seasonal temperature (ªC) sumSeaPrecip = numerical; total seasonal precipitation (mm) meanRefTemp = numerical; mean seasonal temperature for reference period (ªC) temp_anomaly = numerical; temerature anomaly from the reference period (ªC) lagMonths = string; used in seasonal calculation seasonal_precip = numerical; seasonal precipitation (mm) precip_anomaly = numerical; seasonal precipitation anomaly (mm)

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2023View details →

Source Data for: Temperature, species identity and morphological traits predict carbonate excretion and mineralogy in tropical reef fishes

Source Data underlying figures of the paper "Temperature, species identity and morphological traits predict carbonate excretion and mineralogy in tropical reef fishes" by Mattia Ghilardi, Michael A. Salter, Valeriano Parravicini, Sebastian C. A. Ferse, Tim Rixen, Christian Wild, Matthias Birkicht, Chris T. Perry, Alex Berry, Rod W. Wilson, David Mouillot, Sonia Bejarano

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2023View details →

Leaf decomposition, flammability and functional trait data for tropical swamp forest tree species

Decomposition and fire are major carbon pathways in many ecosystems, yet the contribution of species identity to these processes can be difficult to predict. Plant decomposability and flammability have usually been studied separately but could be linked through shared predictive traits. We explored how decomposability and flammability were related to each other and to key plant functional traits in a tropical swamp forest in Singapore. Full methodological details in situ decomposition experiment in Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest, Singapore, laboratory flammability experiment, and leaf functional trait measurements can be found in the published article and supporting information stated below. Nur E. B. Rahman, Stuart W. Smith, Weng Ngai Lam, Kwek Yan Chong, Matthias S. E. Chua, Pei Yun Teo, Daniel W. J. Lee, Shi Yu Phua, Cheryl Y. Aw, Janice S. H. Lee, David A. Wardle. Leaf decomposition and flammability are largely decoupled across species in a tropical swamp forest despite sharing some predictive leaf functional traits. New Phytologist In this data repository, we have uploaded the following decomposition, flammability and trait data as well as secondary data used in our statistical analyses to generate the findings presented in the paper. Specific datasets include the following: <ul> <li>litter_mass_loss.csv : raw data of leaf litterbag dry masses before and after 1 year in situ decomposition experiment in Nee Soon Swamp Forest</li> <li>flammability_leaf_temperature.csv : raw data of temperature recorded during flammability experiments of leaf litter and fresh leaves</li> <li>flammability_timings.csv : raw data of timings of flammability events, namely smouldering and pyrolysis recorded from video footage of flammability experiments</li> <li>senesced_leaf_dryweights_area.csv : senesced leaf raw data for calculating physical traits</li> <li>senesced_leaf_dryweights.csv: senesced leaf dry weights raw data</li> <li>freshtraits_measurements.csv: fresh leaf raw data for calculating physical traits</li> <li>decomposition_constants.csv: derived decomposition constants (k) for each species from the analysis of decomposition experiments.</li> <li>functional_traits_z_standardized.csv : all traits required for the analysis, consolidated following z-standardized transformation</li> <li>functional_traits_untransformed_decomposition_flammability.csv : all traits required for the analysis, untransformed (for back transforming axis labels) and species decomposition and flammability variables</li> </ul> Raw leaf litter mass loss and leaf flammability data are associated meta-data file explaining the column headers and variables. For all other datasets please refer to the paper and supporting information.

Incorporating pressure-volume traits into the leaf economics spectrum

Dataset associated with the article 'Incorporating pressure-volume traits into the leaf economics spectrum' (Nadal et al. 2023 [Eco Lett, accepted]). We provide theoretical and empirical evidence for the coordination of the turgor loss point and associated pressure-volume traits (osmotic potential at full turgor, leaf capacitance, leaf elasticity, leaf saturated water content, modulus of elasticity) with photosynthesis (light-saturated net CO2 assimilation) and leaf mass per area (LMA) and its two components (leaf thickness and density). The complete dataset comprehends a total of 45 data entries from 37 species, including ferns and angiosperms (woody and herbaceous species), most of them measured on the campus of University of the Balearic Islands; this complements the data presented in Nadal et al. (2018 [Eco Lett 21 (9), 1372-1379]). For the 20 species from Nadal et al. (2018), we also provide data regarding their N and C content, leaf anatomy (from optical and TEM images) and cell wall composition.

Variation in functional traits, growth relationships, and resource allocation among annual twig of dove tree along with latitudes

Dove tree (Davidia involucrata Baill.), a monotypic rare species in China and a famous ornamental plant in the world, was employed as a model species in our study. The morphological and biomass traits of annul D. involucrata twigs were investigated in three latitude regions (32°19′ N, 30°08′ and 27°55′) in the Sichuan, Southwest China.

Data from: Reproducing in hot water: experimental heatwaves deteriorate multiple reproductive traits in a freshwater ectotherm

Heatwaves are occurring at an increasing frequency and intensity under ongoing climate change. With many reproductive traits – including mating behaviour and gamete traits– being sensitive even to small stressors, including short temperature changes, the impact of heatwaves on reproduction and sexual selection processes is likely to be vast. Also, understanding whether the sexes may differentially respond to these extreme events is crucial to understand the impact on fecundity and the consequence at the population level. Nonetheless, our knowledge of the effects of heatwaves on these key aspects of an animal life is still limited. Here, we expose recently mated male and female guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to an experimental heatwave (32°C, 6°C above the control, for 5 days) to determine its effects on several traits, including sexual behaviour, condition, ornamentation, and fertility. Using this design, in contrast to most other experimental set ups, we had the possibility to attribute the effects of the heatwave to males' and females' reproductive traits independently. Overall, our results indicate that heatwaves can drastically affect key reproductive traits and unravel sex-specific responses. In males, there was no effect of the heatwave on survival, but both pre- and post-copulatory reproductive traits were affected. After the heatwave, we detected a decrease in orange colouration (the most important ornament on which female choice is based) and the overall level of sexual activity, and a shift in the preferred mating tactic towards forced copulation attempts. The latter suggest implications in sexual conflict dynamics, as forced copulations override female mate choice. Also, after the heatwave, males had more sperm but of lower quality, and, in addition, an increased variance in sperm number. Overall, heatwaves may result in a compromised ability to secure mating and fertilization. In females, the heatwave significantly affected survival, with increased mortality in the short term, and impaired fecundity, with many females from the heatwave treatment not reproducing at all. The negative effects of heatwaves on key reproductive traits unravelled by our study could have major implications for population dynamics and persistence. It highlights the need for further studies on these extreme events on reproduction, to improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change.