Maps of the diversity and distribution of Raunkiær's life forms in European vegetation

This repository contains raster files (TIF format) with a 50 km × 50 km resolution (over UTM grid EPSG:32633), showcasing the diversity and distribution of Raunkiær’s life forms in European vegetation. The maps are based on two key metrics: (i) the proportion (%) of species within each life form and (ii) the diversity of life forms, including richness and evenness.

To generate these maps, we averaged plot-level metric values across a comprehensive dataset comprising 546,501 vegetation plots sourced from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA; Project 163; https://euroveg.org). These plots cover diverse habitats, including 173,190 forests, 260,884 grasslands, 52,517 scrubs, and 59,910 wetlands.

The maps encompass the entire dataset, offering a visualization of the geographical distribution patterns of life forms across Europe. Additionally, we created habitat-specific maps by subsetting the dataset to explore unique patterns within each habitat type (forest, grassland, scrub, and wetland).

Furthermore, we generated additional maps based on standardised effect sizes (SES) of diversity metrics. Through 500 species identity shuffles without replacement, specific to each habitat type, we examined the deviations from random expectations. SES values outside the range of -1.96 to 1.96 indicate significantly lower or higher metric values than expected at random, respectively. 

Folder name
Description of TIF raster values

full.div
Mean richness and evenness of life forms across all habitat types

full.mean.rel.prop
Mean proportion of each life form across all habitat types

habitat.div
Mean richness and evenness of life forms across separate habitat types (forest, grassland, scrub, and wetland)

habitat.mean.rel.prop
Mean proportion of each life form across separate habitat types (forest, grassland, scrub, and wetland)

SES.full.div
Mean richness and evenness of life forms across all habitat types measured with standardized effect sizes (SES)

SES.full.mean.rel.prop
Mean proportion of each life form across all habitat types measured with standardized effect sizes (SES)

SES.habitat.div
Mean richness and evenness of life forms across separate habitat types (forest, grassland, scrub, and wetland) measured with standardized effect sizes (SES)

SES.habitat.mean.rel.prop
Mean proportion of each life form across separate habitat types (forest, grassland, scrub, and wetland) measured with standardized effect sizes (SES)

Additional information is available in our publication:Midolo, G., Axmanová, I., Divíšek, J., Dřevojan, P., Lososová, Z., Večeřa, M., Karger, D. N., Thuiller, W., Bruelheide, H., Aćić, S., Attorre, F., Biurrun, I., Boch, S., Bonari, G., Čarni, A., Chiarucci, A., Ćušterevska, R., Dengler, J., Dziuba, T., Garbolino, E., Jandt, U., Lenoir, J., Marcenò, C., Rūsiņa, S., Šibík, J., Škvorc, Ž., Stančić, Z., Stanišić-Vujačić, M., Svenning, J. C., Swacha, G., Vassilev, K., & Chytrý, M. (2024) Diversity and distribution of Raunkiær’s life forms in European vegetation. Journal of Vegetation Science. Accepted on the 10th of December 2023