Global Stem Respiration Dataset for woody plants based on field observation (GSRD)

This dataset compiles field-observed stem respiration data for woody plants together with site, climate, taxonomic, trait, and measurement metadata. The current release contains 10,722 records from 206 species across 96 sites worldwide. Each row represents one stem respiration observation. The dataset is intended for cross-study comparison, ecological synthesis, and model parameterization.Data were assembled from four sources: published literature, existing trait databases, data digitized from figures, and original field measurements contributed by the authors and collaborators. Literature screening was conducted in Web of Science and CNKI, and figure data were extracted using GetData Graph Digitizer when numerical values were not directly reported. Most measurements were obtained from field chambers with infrared gas analyzers, while a smaller subset comes from laboratory measurements on excised sapwood tissues.Original respiration data were reported in different units, including stem surface area-, stem volume-, sapwood volume-, and sapwood mass-based rates. To improve comparability, all records were standardized to sapwood mass-based stem respiration rate and then normalized to 25°C. The dataset also includes harmonized metadata such as latitude, longitude, elevation, mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, growing-season temperature, plant functional type, wood density, and measurement temperature.The main data table in the current release contains 43 columns, including source information, site location, climate, measurement details, plant traits, respiration variables, and two quality-control flags. Reference includes DATAID, REFID, SOURCE, and REF, which identify each record and its source publication or contribution. Site Location includes LAT (degree), LON (degree), ELE (m a.s.l.), and CLIMATE_ZONE, describing the geographic position and climate classification of each sampling site. Climate includes MAT (°C), MAT_ORIGIN, MAP (mm yr⁻¹), MAP_ORIGIN, Tg (°C), and ALPHA (unitless), which characterize site temperature, precipitation, growing-season temperature, and moisture availability. Measurement includes SEASONAL, YEAR, MONTH, DOY (day), MEASUREMENT, and MTEM (°C), describing whether the data represent seasonal time series or single observations, the measurement date, method, and measurement temperature. Plant Trait includes ORIGINAL_SPNAME, FINAL_SPNAME, AUTHORITY, GENUS, FAMILY, GROUP, PFT, AGE (year), DIAMETER (cm), WD (g cm⁻³), and RAP (%), providing taxonomic identity and supporting trait information for each record. Stem Respiration Rate includes RS_AREA (μmol m⁻² s⁻¹), RS_VOL (μmol m⁻³ s⁻¹), RS_MASS (nmol g⁻¹ s⁻¹), RS_ORIGIN, OriginUnit, RSMASS_CAL (nmol g⁻¹ s⁻¹) (standardized mass-based respiration), RS_MASS25 (nmol g⁻¹ s⁻¹) mass-based respiration normalized to 25°C), LNRS25, and LNRS25_RAP, which describe the original respiration measurements, their original units, and the standardized respiration metrics used for cross-study comparison. In the current release, the table also includes two quality-control fields, QC_FLAG_RS_MASS25_GLOBAL_IQR3 and QC_FLAG_RS_MASS25_SITE_IQR3, giving a total of 43 columns.The dataset has global spatial coverage, with site coordinates ranging from 43.000°S to 64.23°N and 155.125°W to 172.75°E. Temporal information is reported in the fields YEAR, MONTH, and DOY when available from the original studies. The dataset includes both single-time observations and seasonal time-series measurements, identified by the SEASONAL field.Some variables contain missing values because they were not reported in the original sources. For example, elevation is missing for part of the dataset, and date fields are incomplete for some records. Climate variables not reported in the source studies were supplemented using CRU climate products, and their origin is indicated by MAT_ORIGIN and MAP_ORIGIN. Missing values are recorded as NA. Potential uncertainty may arise from differences among original measurement methods, figure digitization, metadata completion from external climate products, and unit-conversion or temperature-standardization steps. To improve reliability, the dataset was checked for unit consistency, coordinate validity, and statistical outliers, and flagged records were compared against original publications during technical validation.Relationship to previous release (https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.ecodb.00170)This release is distinct from the archived dataset supporting Zhang et al. (2025). The earlier archived release should be used to reproduce the published results of that paper, whereas the present release is intended for broader reuse as an expanded and curated dataset.