RecruitNet: A global database of plant recruitment networks.

Plant recruitment interactions (i.e., what recruits under what) shape the composition, diversity, and structure of plant communities. Despite the huge body of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying recruitment interactions among species, we still know little about the structure of the recruitment networks emerging in ecological communities. Modeling and analyzing the community-level structure of plant recruitment interactions as a complex network can provide relevant information on ecological and evolutionary processes acting both at the species and ecosystem levels. We report a data set containing 143 plant recruitment networks in 23 countries across five continents, including temperate and tropical ecosystems. Each network identifies the species under which another species recruits. All networks report the number of recruits (i.e., individuals) per species. The data set includes >850,000 recruiting individuals involved in 118,411 paired interactions among 3318 vascular plant species across the globe. The cover of canopy species and open ground is also provided. Three sampling protocols were used: (1) The Recruitment Network (RN) protocol (106 networks) focuses on interactions among established plants ("canopy species") and plants in their early stages of recruitment ("recruit species"). A series of plots was delimited within a locality, and all the individuals recruiting and their canopy species were identified; (2) The paired Canopy-Open (pCO) protocol (26 networks) consists in locating a potential canopy plant and identifying recruiting individuals under the canopy and in a nearby open space of the same area; (3) The Georeferenced plot (GP) protocol (11 networks) consists in using information from georeferenced individual plants in large plots to infer canopy-recruit interactions. Some networks incorporate data for both herbs and woody species, whereas others focus exclusively on woody species. The location of each study site, geographical coordinates, country, locality, responsible author, sampling dates, sampling method, and life habits of both canopy and recruit species are provided. This database will allow researchers to test ecological, biogeographical, and evolutionary hypotheses related to plant recruitment interactions. There are no copyright restrictions on the data set; please cite this data paper when using these data in publications.

Correlations between morphological fruit types, fruit and seed colors, and functional groups / Correlaciones entre tipos morfológicos de frutos, colores de frutos y semillas y grupos funcionales

Abstract: The associations between morphological fruit types, fruit and seed colors, and functional plant traits: life forms, epiphytism, physiology, nutritional relationships, fruit phenology, and successional stage, were determined for 1,139 plant species from contrasting plant communities. Texture and dehiscence were closely related. Dehiscence is largely associated with dry tissues; indehiscence, however, is an attribute of both dry and fleshy fruits. The number of morphological fruit types was 28 or 55 for Gray's and Spjut's classifications, respectively. Fruits were predominantly dark in color (brown, purple-black, black or green), whilst seeds had both dark and light colors (brown, beige, or black). The most representative associations were mainly found between the more abundant fruit types and the colors most common. Asymmetries in the level of specialization, whereby less common fruit and seed colors tended to be associated with the most common fruit types, were also found. Fleshy fruits showed more variation as regards their coloration, and only drupes and berries showed a tendency towards a specific color: purple-black. The relationships among fruit type and color, seed color, and functional plant traits revealed the following trends: trees produced both fleshy and dry fruits; shrubs produced fleshy fruits; and herbaceous species, dry fruits. Woody species tended to have dark or bright colors, depending on their seed dispersal mechanisms and phylogenetic relations. Epiphytes were associated with dry-dehiscent fruits and brown seeds, and parasitic-hemiparasitic species had predominantly fleshy-indehiscent fruits. Pioneer species were more likely to have dry fruits, whereas fleshy fruits tended to be more frequent in late successional stage species. The C4 species, mostly herbs, had mainly one-seeded dry fruits, but multi-seeded fruits in succulent-CAM species showed morphologically diverse fruit types. Unripe and ripe fruits showed seasonal changes, especially during the rainy-dry transition period for the most abundant morphological fruit types, dry fruits during the dry period and fleshy fruited species was positively associated with the rainy season. All these trends are discussed with regard to their environmental significance and the relationships between fruit morphology, colors and functional groups. .

Resumen: Las asociaciones entre tipos morfológicos de frutos, colores de frutos y semillas y los grupos funcionales de las plantas: formas de vida, epifitismo, fisiología, relaciones nutricionales, fenología de frutos y estado sucesional fueron determinados para 1139 especies de plantas de comunidades contrastantes. La textura y dehiscencia estaban muy relacionadas. Dehiscencia está estrechamente asociada con tejidos secos, pero indehiscencia es un atributo de frutos secos y carnosos. El número de tipos morfológicos de frutos fue 28 y 55 para la clasificación de Gray y Spjut respectivamente. Los frutos fueron predominantemente de colores oscuros (marrón, negro-purpura, negro o verdes), mientras que las semillas tenían colores claros y oscuros (marrón, beige o negro). Las asociaciones más representativas fueron principalmente encontradas entre los tipos de frutos más abundantes y los colores más comunes. También se encontraron asimetrías en los niveles de especialización, donde los colores menos comunes de frutos y semillas estuvieron asociados con los tipos de frutos más comunes. Los frutos carnosos mostraron más variación en su coloración, y solo las drupas y bayas tendieron a colores específicos como negro-purpura. Las relaciones entre tipo de fruto y color, color semilla y rasgos funcionales de las plantas revelaron las siguientes tendencias: arboles producen frutos secos y carnosos; arbustos frutos carnosos y hierbas producen frutos secos. Las especies leñosas tendieron a tener colores oscuros y brillantes, relacionados con su mecanismo de dispersión y filogenia. Epifitas estuvieron asociadas con frutos secos dehiscentes y semillas marrones, y las especies parásitas-hemiparásitas tenían predominantemente frutos carnosos indehiscentes. Las especies pioneras tenían comúnmente frutos secos, mientras que los frutos carnosos tendieron a ser más frecuentes en especies de estados sucesionales tardíos. Las especies C4, principalmente hierbas, tenían frutos secos con una semilla, mientras que frutos polispermos en especies CAM mostraron diversos tipos de frutos. La fenología de frutos maduros e inmaduros mostro cambios estacionales para los más abundantes tipos morfológicos, especialmente durante el periodo de transición lluvia-sequia, frutos secos en el periodo seco y frutos carnosos durante el periodo lluvioso. Todas estas tendencias son discutidas con relación a las características ambientales y de acuerdo con las relaciones entre tipos morfológicos de frutos, colores y grupos funcionales.

Reproductive phenology of 233 species from four herbaceous-shrubby communities in the Gran Sabana Plateau of Venezuela.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Herbaceous-shrubby communities in the Gran Sabana (Great Savanna) Plateau of Venezuela grow under non-zonal conditions. We speculated that this would produce specific patterns of reproductive phenology within these different soil-climate-vegetation associations. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that the reproductive phenology patterns of four herbaceous-shrubby communities are determined by climate, plant life-forms and soil properties. METHODOLOGY: The reproductive phenology of 233 plant species of the Gran Sabana Plateau of the Venezuelan Guayana Highlands was studied taking into account their life-forms (i.e. trees, shrubs, climbers, annual herbs, perennial herbs, epiphytes and parasites/hemiparasites) in four herbaceous-shrubby communities: (i) shrubland, (ii) secondary bush, (iii) savanna and (iv) broad-leaved meadow. Patterns of flowering, and occurrence of unripe fruit and ripe fruit were studied at two levels of intensity for 24 months within a 5-year span. Two phenological records for each month of the year and between two and four replicates for each community type were made. Randomly selected 2-3 ha plots were used. General phenological patterns were established using <25% of the plants of each species in each plot to give the total duration of each phenological phase. High-intensity phenological patterns were established using >25% of individuals in each plot to establish times of high abundance of flowers, and presence of unripe fruit and/or ripe fruit on individual plants. This generated phenological peaks for each species. PRINCIPAL RESULTS: Non-seasonality of general flowering and unripe fruiting in each of the four communities was related to non-seasonal flowering and unripe fruiting patterns in the plant life-forms studied and to low variation in precipitation throughout the year. Flowering activity in the shrubland and broad-leaved meadow peaked twice. The bush community had only one flowering peak while the savanna gave a non-seasonal flowering peak. The peak unripe fruiting pattern was not clearly related to unripe fruit phenological patterns of the most abundant life-forms. Unripe fruit patterns and precipitation were only correlated for shrubs, climbers and trees in the shrubland. Ripe fruiting patterns peaked during the short-dry season in the bush and shrubland, and were negatively correlated with precipitation in the shrubland. General and peak ripe fruiting patterns were non-seasonal in the savanna and broad-leaved meadow and related to the dominance of herbaceous species with prolonged ripe fruiting times, low climate seasonality, high plant species richness and diversity, and dispersal syndromes. CONCLUSIONS: The reproductive phenology of the herbaceous-shrubby communities is mainly influenced by the composition of the life-forms, the precipitation regime and soil type.