Drivers of phenological transitions in the seedling life stage

Plant functional ecology research has primarily focused on juvenile and adult plants even though regeneration from seed can be the most consequential life-history bottleneck with cascading influence on later stages of growth and reproduction. Understanding relationships among phenology, morphology, and growth-related functional traits has improved our knowledge of plant life-history strategies and adaptive responses to changing climate. However, whether relationships among phenological and morpho-physiological traits exist during plant regeneration is unknown. We also lack understanding of the relative importance of these relationships compared with those of regeneration phenology with other factors like plant phylogeny, geographic location, and whether a species is native or non-native to the location. 
To better understand these gaps in knowledge, we evaluated three phenological traits (days to germination, first and third true leaves) and six morpho-physiological traits (seed mass, r..., These are all measurements taken from growth chamber and greenhouse grown plants. The data are raw. , , # Drivers of phenological transitions in the seedling life stage

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.573n5tbjg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.573n5tbjg)

## Description of the data and file structure

We collected phenological and morpho-physiological trait data for 131 forb species from six grasslands. Plants were grown in growth chamber or greenhouse conditions, harvested, and measured at different phenological stages. 

### Files and variables

#### File: Slate\_et\_al\_2024\_data.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* Region: Species were evaluated from six study regions
* Origin: Species were either native or exotic to the study region where their seed was collected
* species: Species code
* Genus: Genus name
* Epitel: Epitel
* Species.1: Full species name
* source: Seeds were either field collected or purchased
* Family: Family name
* strategy_detail: Life history strategy (perennial or annual)
* days_to_Germ: Days to Germination is the number of days between starting seeds and pr...