The <scp>bien r</scp> package: A tool to access the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database

Maitner, Brian S.; Boyle, Brad; Casler, Nathan; Condit, Rick; Donoghue, John C.; Durán, Sandra M.; Guaderrama, Daniel; Hinchliff, Cody E.; Jørgensen, Peter M.; Kraft, Nathan J. B.; McGill, Brian J.; Merow, Cory; Morueta‐Holme, Naia; Peet, Robert K.; Sandel, Brody; Schildhauer, Mark; Smith, Stephen A.; Svenning, Jens Christian; Thiers, Barbara M.; Violle, Cyrille; Wiser, Susan K.; Enquist, Brian J.

doi:10.1111/2041-210x.12861

Cited by 283 publications

(286 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…This may relate to the fact that numerous plant families and food types occur in wide distribution ranges within the Neotropics (Maitner et al . ). Therefore, widely distributed parrot species can access many of the same plant species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Diet of Neotropical parrots is independent of phylogeny but correlates with body size and geographical range

Benavídez

Palacio

Rivera

et al. 2018

Ibis

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Body mass and geographical range are two main drivers of diet in animals, yet how these factors influence diet in the morphologically and ecologically diverse avian group of Psittaciformes is little known. We reviewed current knowledge of the diet of Neotropical parrots and assessed the relation between diet (breadth and composition), phylogeny, body mass and geographical range. Diet has been documented for 98 of 165 species, but information is available only for 34 of 59 threatened species, and countries with high species diversity (> 20 species) had few studies (one to seven). Neotropical parrot species consumed 1293 plant species of 125 families. When assessing the relative frequency of different food items in the diet (seed, fruits, flowers, leaves, nectar, bark and stems), we found that parrots mostly exploited seeds (41.9%) and fruits (38.3%) of native species. Diet overlap was very low among genera (0.006-0.321). At the species level, geographical range and body size explained the variation in diet composition. In particular, small parrots of restricted distribution had a distinct diet composition relative to either large or widely distributed species. Although body size and geographical range showed phylogenetic inertia, diet was independent of phylogenetic history. Our review not only reveals ecological factors explaining diet in a generalist group but also exposes information gaps across the Neotropical region.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Diet of Neotropical parrots is independent of phylogeny but correlates with body size and geographical range

Benavídez

Palacio

Rivera

et al. 2018

Ibis

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“…The BIEN 3.0 dataset (retrieved on 13 November 2014) consists of 114,412 plant species in the continental New World (see Appendix for the reference list). Most of these data are now publicly available via the “BIEN” R package (Maitner et al., in press) with some exceptions concerning the coordinates of endangered species and records from private databases (see Maitner et al., in press for details).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Which environmental drivers are related to these patterns, and do they have similar effects on both woody and herbaceous plants? We take advantage of two plant databases: (1) the BIEN database of species’ traits, occurrences and range maps covering the entire New World (Botanical Information and Ecology Network; Enquist, Condit, Peet, Schildhauer, & Thiers, ; Maitner et al., in press), and (2) the TRY Plant Trait Database (http://www.try-db.org; Kattge et al., ). We use two types of species distribution data: species occurrences and species range maps.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial patterns and climate relationships of major plant traits in the New World differ between woody and herbaceous species

Šímová

Violle

Svenning

et al. 2018

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim Despite several recent efforts to map plant traits and to identify their climatic drivers, there are still major gaps. Global trait patterns for major functional groups, in particular, the differences between woody and herbaceous plants, have yet to be identified. Here, we take advantage of big data efforts to compile plant species occurrence and trait data to analyse the spatial patterns of assemblage means and variances of key plant traits. We tested whether these patterns and their climatic drivers are similar for woody and herbaceous plants. Location New World (North and South America). Methods Using the largest currently available database of plant occurrences, we provide maps of 200 × 200 km grid‐cell trait means and variances for both woody and herbaceous species and identify environmental drivers related to these patterns. We focus on six plant traits: maximum plant height, specific leaf area, seed mass, wood density, leaf nitrogen concentration and leaf phosphorus concentration. Results For woody assemblages, we found a strong climate signal for both means and variances of most of the studied traits, consistent with strong environmental filtering. In contrast, for herbaceous assemblages, spatial patterns of trait means and variances were more variable, the climate signal on trait means was often different and weaker. Main conclusion Trait variations for woody versus herbaceous assemblages appear to reflect alternative strategies and differing environmental constraints. Given that most large‐scale trait studies are based on woody species, the strikingly different biogeographic patterns of herbaceous traits suggest that a more synthetic framework is needed that addresses how suites of traits within and across broad functional groups respond to climate.

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“…However, we are currently developing data extraction tools (comparable to those in the bien R package; Maitner, 2018) that enable users to retrieve data from GIFT and prepare them for macrocological and biogeographical analyses ( However, we are currently developing data extraction tools (comparable to those in the bien R package; Maitner, 2018) that enable users to retrieve data from GIFT and prepare them for macrocological and biogeographical analyses ( …”

Section: Data Ava I L a B I L I T Y S Tat E M E N Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

GIFT – A Global Inventory of Floras and Traits for macroecology and biogeography

Weigelt

König

Kreft

2019

Journal of Biogeography

137

189

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Aim:To understand how functional traits and evolutionary history shape the geographic distribution of plant life on Earth, we need to integrate high-quality and global-scale distribution data with functional and phylogenetic information. Largescale distribution data for plants are, however, often restricted to either certain taxonomic groups or geographic regions. Range maps only exist for a small subset of all plant species and digitally available point-occurrence information is biased both geographically and taxonomically. Floras and checklists represent an alternative, yet rarely used potential source of information. They contain highly curated information about the species composition of a clearly defined area, and together virtually cover the entire global land surface. Here, we report on our recent efforts to mobilize this information for macroecological and biogeographical analyses in the GIFT database, the Global Inventory of Floras and Traits. Location: Global. Taxon: Land plants (Embryophyta).Methods: GIFT integrates plant distributions from regional Floras and checklists with functional traits, phylogenetic information, and region-level geographic, environmental and socio-economic data. It contains information about the floristic status (native, endemic, alien and naturalized) and takes advantage of the wealth of trait information in the regional Floras, complemented by data from global trait databases.Results: GIFT 1.0 holds species lists for 2,893 regions across the whole globe including ~315,000 taxonomically standardized species names (i.e. c. 80% of all known land plant species) and ~3 million species-by-region occurrences. Based on a hierarchical and taxonomical derivation scheme, GIFT contains information for 83 functional traits and more than 2.3 million trait-by-species combinations and achieves unprecedented coverage in categorical traits such as woodiness (~233,000 spp.) or growth form (~213,000 spp.). Main conclusions:Here, we present the structure, content and automated workflows of GIFT and a corresponding web-interface (http://gift.uni-goett ingen.de) as proof of concept for the feasibility and potential of mobilizing aggregated biodiversity data for global macroecological and biogeographical research.

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The bien r package: A tool to access the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database

Cited by 283 publications

References 19 publications

Diet of Neotropical parrots is independent of phylogeny but correlates with body size and geographical range

Diet of Neotropical parrots is independent of phylogeny but correlates with body size and geographical range

Spatial patterns and climate relationships of major plant traits in the New World differ between woody and herbaceous species

GIFT – A Global Inventory of Floras and Traits for macroecology and biogeography

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