Crowdsourced biodiversity monitoring fills gaps in global plant trait mapping
Abstract
Abstract Plant functional traits are fundamental to ecosystem dynamics and Earth system processes, but their global characterization is limited by available field surveys and trait measurements. Recent expansions in biodiversity data aggregation—including vegetation surveys, citizen science observations, and trait measurements—offer new opportunities to overcome these constraints. Here we demonstrate that combining these diverse data sources with high-resolution Earth observation data enables accurate modeling of key plant traits at up to 1 km 2 resolution. Our approach achieves correlations up to 0.63 (15 of 31 traits exceeding 0.50) and improved spatial transferability, effectively bridging gaps in under-sampled regions. By capturing a broad range of traits with high spatial coverage, these maps can enhance understanding of plant community properties and ecosystem functioning, while serving as tools for modeling global biogeochemical processes and informing conservation efforts. Our framework highlights the power of crowdsourced biodiversity data in addressing longstanding extrapolation challenges in global plant trait modeling, with continued advancements in data collection and remote sensing poised to further refine trait-based understanding of the biosphere.
Article Details
Authors (48)
Daniel Lusk
Sophie Wolf
Daria Svidzinska
Carsten F. Dormann
Jens Kattge
Helge Bruelheide
Institute of Biology/Geobotany and Botanical Garden, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Francesco Maria Sabatini
Gabriella Damasceno
Álvaro Moreno Martínez
Cyrille Violle
CEFE, University of Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE-PSL University, IRD, Montpellier, France.
Daniel Hending
Georg J. A. Hähn
Solana Tabeni
Shyam Phartyal
Fernando Gonçalves
Section for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen
Holger Kreft
Department of Biodiversity, Macroecology and Biogeography, University of Göttingen
Marco Schmidt
Han Chen
GBRCE for Functional Molecular Engineering, LIFM, IGCME, School of Chemistry
Behlül Güler
Jiri Dolezal
Remigiusz Pielech
Anaclara Guido
Ciara Dwyer
Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University
Francesca Napoleone
Jacob Willie
André Luís Gasper
Manuel J. Macía
Milan Chytrý
Jonathan Lenoir
Dinesh Thakur
Jürgen Dengler
Sebastian Świerszcz
Jan Altman
Ladislav Mucina
Ashish N. Nerlekar
Kaoru Kakinuma
Pravin Rawat
Zvjezdana Stančić
Riccardo Testolin
Mohamed Z. Hatim
Flávio Rodrigues
Jürgen Homeier
Marcia C. M. Marques
James K. McCarthy
M. A. El-Sheikh
Kirill Korznikov
Kilian Gerberding
Teja Kattenborn
Chair of Sensor-based Geoinformatics