The LEDA Traitbase: a database of life‐history traits of the Northwest European flora

TLDR

An open internet database of life‑history traits for ~3000 Northwest European plant species has been created to support research on biodiversity, macro‑ecology, and functional responses. The authors describe the database structure and summarize the available trait data. The LEDA‑Traitbase includes 26 traits covering persistence, regeneration, and dispersal, is freely accessible, and supports large‑scale studies of community functional responses, ecosystem properties, rarity, invasiveness, and trait trade‑offs. Synthesis.

Abstract

1 An international group of scientists has built an open internet data base of life-history traits of the Northwest European flora (the LEDA-Traitbase) that can be used as a data source for fundamental research on plant biodiversity and coexistence, macro-ecological patterns and plant functional responses. 2 The species-trait matrix comprises referenced information under the control of an editorial board, for ca. 3000 species of the Northwest European flora, combining existing information and additional measurements. The data base currently contains data on 26 plant traits that describe three key features of plant dynamics: persistence, regeneration and dispersal. The LEDA-Traitbase is freely available at http://www.leda-traitbase.org. 3 We present the structure of the data base and an overview of the trait information available. 4 Synthesis. The LEDA Traitbase is useful for large-scale analyses of functional responses of communities to environmental change, effects of community trait composition on ecosystem properties and patterns of rarity and invasiveness, as well as linkages between traits as expressions of fundamental trade-offs in plants.