Community weighted mean trait data of Italian forest understories

Stefano Chelli; Gianluigi Ottaviani; Giandiego Campetella; Roberto Canullo

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2019.104947

Community weighted mean trait data of Italian forest understories

Data Brief. 2019 Dec 5:28:104947. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.104947. eCollection 2020 Feb.

Authors

Stefano Chelli¹, Gianluigi Ottaviani², Giandiego Campetella¹, Roberto Canullo¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, Plant Diversity and Ecosystems Management Unit, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy.
² Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, 135 Dukelská, CZ-37982, Třeboň, Czech Republic.

Abstract

Plant functional trait data aggregated at the community level (i.e., community weighted mean, CWM) are fundamental to study plant-environment relationships. Here, we provide a large database of CWM values of twelve traits reflecting several plant functions, including leaf, seed, whole-plant, clonal and bud bank traits. The CWMs were calculated in 201 forest stands (a statistically representative sample of all the Italian forests) across three biogeographic regions: Alpine, Continental, and Mediterranean.

Keywords: Abundance-weighted traits; Bud bank traits; Clonal traits; Functional biogeography; Leaf dry matter content; Seed mass; Specific leaf area.