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

作者：Patrick Weigelt, Christian König, Holger Kreft · 发表于：Journal of Biogeography · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1111/jbi.13623 · 被引用次数：250 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Plant and animal studies、Species Distribution and Climate Change

Abstract 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. Large‐scale 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...