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Harvard Forest Data Archive

HF426

Root Systems of Individual Plants Worldwide 2022

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Data

Overview

  • Lead: Shersingh Joseph Tumber-Dávila
  • Investigators: H. Jochen Schenk, Robert Jackson
  • Contact: Information Manager
  • Start date: 2022
  • End date: 2022
  • Status: complete
  • Location: Global
  • Latitude: -90 to +90 degrees
  • Longitude: -180 to +180 degrees
  • Elevation:
  • Datum: WGS84
  • Taxa:
  • Release date: 2023
  • Language: English
  • EML file: knb-lter-hfr.426.2
  • DOI: digital object identifier
  • EDI: data package
  • DataONE: data package
  • Related links:
  • Study type: short-term measurement, historical
  • Research topic: historical and retrospective studies; international research projects; physiological ecology, population dynamics and species interactions
  • LTER core area: primary production
  • Keywords: allometry, diameter at breast height, herbs, morphology, plant physiology, rhizosphere, roots, trees
  • Abstract:

    The above- and below-ground sizes and shapes of plants strongly influence plant competition, community structure, and plant-environment interactions, but the plant size and shape across climate regimes remain incompletely understood. In this study I seek to understand how plant geometries respond to varying climates via trade-offs in shoot height and width, and root depth and spread. I more than doubled the Root Systems of Individual Plants (RSIP) database to contain 5,647 observations, to our knowledge the largest database describing the maximum rooting depth, lateral spread, and shoot size of terrestrial plants in the world. Shoot size and root system size strongly covary. Across climatic gradients woody plants show deeper-narrower root systems in arid climates and taller shoots in humid climates. Phylogeny greatly influences shoot size. Rooting depth is primarily influenced by climate seasonality and lateral root spread is strongly influenced by shoot size. Using our newly expanded global database I found that shoot size covaries strongly with rooting system size; however, these relationships are not static across the climate space, as the geometries of plants shift considerably.

  • Methods:

    RSIP Description

    The Root Systems of Individual Plants (RSIP) data set includes observations of the vertical and horizontal extents of individual plants plus information on other plant traits. The RSIP data comes from previously published observations of maximum plant root system dimensions, which I compiled from 361 sources, covering 2,973 species from over 200 plant families. Our new RSIP database includes a range of root and shoot sizes spanning more than four orders of magnitude across diverse geographic locations and environments and covering most of the earth’s climates and environs.

    The plant species from our observations are classified into six growth forms: forbs (30% of observations), grasses (17%), semi-shrubs (shrub species and suffrutescent forbs that rarely reach 1 m in height) (10%), shrubs (12%), stem succulents (2%), and trees (28%). I also record coarse-scale information on the plant’s environment and location, such as biome, elevation, and climate.

    The RSIP contains various measurements describing above- and belowground dimensions of plant size. The principal dimension of interest is maximum rooting depth (DR; n=5,633), defined as the deepest soil depth reached by the roots of an individual plant. Two additional belowground dimensions include lateral spread (LR; n=2,874), the maximum one-sided horizontal distance from the stem of an individual plant reached by its roots (i.e., the radius), and root system width (WR; n=1,756), the maximum root system diameter. The main aboveground dimensional measurements are shoot height (HS; n=2,373) and shoot width (WS; n=2,074).

    To further examine the effects of climate, temperature, and precipitation seasonality on rooting depth and lateral spread across plants of different aboveground sizes, I calculated two allometric ratios: 1) relative rooting depth (Drel =DR/VS), and 2) relative lateral root spread (Lrel =LR/ VS; VS [m3]=π × HS[m] × WS[m]2 / 6). Accounting for overall plant size by using the relative extents provides a way to understand how rooting depth and spread are affected by the covariates independent of plant size.

  • Organization: Harvard Forest. 324 North Main Street, Petersham, MA 01366, USA. Phone (978) 724-3302. Fax (978) 724-3595.

  • Project: The Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program examines ecological dynamics in the New England region resulting from natural disturbances, environmental change, and human impacts. (ROR).

  • Funding: National Science Foundation LTER grants: DEB-8811764, DEB-9411975, DEB-0080592, DEB-0620443, DEB-1237491, DEB-1832210.

  • Use: This dataset is released to the public under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 (No Rights Reserved). Please keep the dataset creators informed of any plans to use the dataset. Consultation with the original investigators is strongly encouraged. Publications and data products that make use of the dataset should include proper acknowledgement.

  • License: Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal (CC0-1.0)

  • Citation: Tumber-Dávila S. 2023. Root Systems of Individual Plants Worldwide 2022. Harvard Forest Data Archive: HF426 (v.2). Environmental Data Initiative: https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/f45d80898bd7c9c7f2b2fbda5dcec0eb.

Detailed Metadata

hf426-01: RSIP database

  1. ID: entry number for ID observations
  2. Reference: reference that the entry data originates from
  3. Species: current axonomic nomenclature (Genus species)
  4. Synonym: plant name from original literature if different from current taxonomic nomenclature
  5. Family: current taxonomic family classification
  6. Growth_form: plant growth form found using plant databases (Roskov et al. 2017; NRCS. 2017) or reported in reference literature
    • Forb: Forbs, herbaceous plants that are not grasses
    • Grass: Grasses
    • Semi-shrub: Semi-shrub
    • Shrub: Shrub
    • Succulent: Succulent
    • Tree: Tree
  7. Life_span: plant life span found using plant databases (Roskov et al. 2017; NRCS. 2017) or reported in reference literature
    • A: Annual plants (whole life cycle within 1 year)
    • P: Perennial plants (includes biennials and all non-annual plants)
  8. Tissue: woody or herbaceous plants
    • Herbaceous: Herbaceous plants
    • Woody: Woody plants
  9. Seed_Cat: monocot, dicot, or gymnosperm
    • Dicot: Dicot Plants (Magnoliopsida)
    • Gymnosperm: Gymnosperm Plants
    • Monocot: Plants with only one cotyledon
    • Pteridophyte: Pteridophyte plants
  10. Leaf_strategy: is the leafing strategy evergreen or deciduous (only for woody plants)
    • D: Deciduous (including winter-deciduous and drought-deciduous)
    • E: Evergreen (including some semi-evergreen)
  11. Leaf_form: is the leafing strategy broad-leaf or needle-leaf (only for woody plants)
    • broad-leaf: Broad-leaf
    • needle-leaf: Needle-leaf
    • palm: Palm
  12. PS_type: photosynthesis pathway
    • C3: C3 Photosynthetic Pathway
    • C4: C4 Photosynthetic Pathway
    • C3-C4: C3/C4 intermediates
    • CAM: Crassulacean Acid Metabolism Photosynthesis
  13. Dr: maximum rooting depth of plant (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  14. Lr: maximum lateral root spread/one-sided (radius) linear distance from stem reached by roots (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  15. Wr: rooting spread aka maximum root system diameter (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  16. Dl: depth of maximum lateral root (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  17. Hs: height of plant shoot (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  18. Ws: width of plant shoot (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  19. DBH: diameter at breast height of trees branching higher than 1.5meters; recorded at 1.3-1.5 meters (unit: centimeter / missing value: NA)
  20. Vr: estimate of root system volume using a bi-conal shape (unit: meterCubed / missing value: NA)
  21. Vs: estimate of shoot volume using an ellipsoidal shape (unit: meterCubed / missing value: NA)
  22. Drel: relative maximum rooting depth (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  23. Lrel: relative maximum lateral spread (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  24. Y_Xshoot: above-ground dimensional aspect ratio indicator (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  25. Y_Xroot: below-ground dimensional aspect ratio (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  26. S_Ry: vertical coordinative strategy indicator (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  27. S_Rx: horizontal coordinative strategy indicator (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  28. Biome: biome of entry, taken from original literature or based by location. following the WWF major habitat type classification (Olson et al. 2001)
  29. Eco_Name: unique ecoregion name (Olson et al., 2001)
  30. Realm: biogeographic Realm (Olson et al., 2001)
    • AA: Australasia
    • AT: Afrotropical
    • IM: Indo-Malayan
    • NA.: Nearctic
    • NT: Neotropical
    • OC: Oceania
    • PA: Palearctic
  31. Eco_ID: unique id for the ecoregion with a realm-biome-ecoregion code in the form of: RR-BB-EE (Olson et al. 2001)
  32. Vegetation: dominant vegetation of ecosystem or biome
    • G: Grasses
    • S: Shrubs
    • T: Trees
  33. Location: geographic location (usually in terms of nearest city, state/province, region, or country)
  34. Lat: latitude (in decimal degrees) (unit: degree / missing value: NA)
  35. Long: longitude (in decimal degrees) (unit: degree / missing value: NA)
  36. Spatial_buffer: error estimate for the latitude and longitude, meant to serve as a buffer or radius that the point represents (unit: kilometer / missing value: NA)
  37. Elevation: elevation (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  38. Soil_description: description of soil
  39. USDA_soil_texture: soil texture categories taken from the USDA system (Soil Science Division Staff. 2017)
    • Cl: Clay
    • ClLo: Clay loam
    • Lo: Loam
    • LoSa: Loamy sand
    • Ro: Rock
    • Sa: Sand
    • SaCl: Sandy clay
    • SaClLo: Sandy clay loam
    • SaLo: Sandy loam
    • Si: Silt
    • SiCl: Silty clay
    • SiClLo: Silty clay loam
    • SiLo: Silty loam
    • Wa: Wetland
  40. EU_soil_texture: soil texture categories taken from the EU system (Wösten et al. 1999)
    • C: Coarse
    • F: Fine
    • M: Medium
    • Wa: Wetland
  41. Water_Table_Depth_Fan: water table depth from Fan et al. (2017) (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  42. BIO1: annual mean temperature (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  43. BIO2: mean diurnal range (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  44. BIO3: isothermality (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  45. BIO4: temperature seasonality (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  46. BIO5: maximum temperature of warmest month (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  47. BIO6: minimum temperature of coldest month (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  48. BIO7: temperature annual range (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  49. BIO8: mean temperature of wettest quarter (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  50. BIO9: mean temperature of driest quarter (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  51. BIO10: mean temperature of warmest quarter (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  52. BIO11: mean temperature of coldest quarter (unit: kelvin / missing value: NA)
  53. BIO13: precipitation of wettest month (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  54. BIO14: precipitation of driest month (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  55. BIO15: precipitation seasonality (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  56. BIO16: precipitation of wettest quarter (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  57. BIO17: precipitation of driest quarter (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  58. BIO18: precipitation of warmest quarter (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  59. BIO19: precipitation of coldest quarter (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  60. MAP: mean annual precipitation. taken from primary literature or worldClim data (BIO12) (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  61. MAE: mean annual potential evapotranspiration. taken from primary literature or calculated using Hargreave's equation (Trabucco & Zomer, 2009) (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  62. Ai: aridity index (unit: meter / missing value: NA)
  63. Sa: annual water storage index (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  64. Msur: months with a surplus of water (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  65. Mdef: months with a deficit of water (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  66. Psur: annual seasonal surplus of water (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  67. Pdef: annual seasonal deficit of water (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  68. Rclass: classification of MAP
    • A: MAP is less than or equal to 0.125
    • B: MAP is greater than 0.125 and less than or equal to 0.25
    • C: MAP is greater than 0.25 and less than or equal to 0.5
    • D: MAP is greater than 0.5
  69. Rregime: precipitation seasonality regime classified using MAP. latitude. and BIO18-19
    • E: all year; climates where BIO18/BIO19 is greater than 0.75 and less than 1.25
    • S: summer; temperate and subtropical climates where BIO18/BIO19 is greater than or equal to 1.25
    • TS: tropical seasonal; seasonally dry climates lacking a cold season
    • W: winter; temperate and subtropical climates where BIO18/BIO19 is less than or equal to 0.75
  70. Aclass: Classification of Ai
    • ha: hyper-arid; AI is less than 0.03
    • ar: arid; AI is greater than or equal to 0.03 and less than 0.2
    • sa: semi-arid; AI is greater than or equal to 0.2 and less than 0.5
    • sh: sub-humid; AI is greater than or equal to 0.5 and less than 0.65
    • hu: humid; AI is greater than or equal to 0.65

hf426-02: RSIP categories

  1. categoryGroup: RSIP category group
  2. categoryName: category name
  3. n: number of total observations (unit: number / missing value: NA)
  4. species: number of unique species (unit: number / missing value: NA)
  5. locations: number of geographic locations (unit: number / missing value: NA)
  6. studies: number of studies (unit: number / missing value: NA)
  7. description: description of category

hf426-03: references for RSIP data

  • Compression: none
  • Format: pdf
  • Type: document