Plant community data for European ecoregions

Patterns in macroecology are related to species occurrence across meaningful spatial and temporal scales. The dataset provided here reports species distribution data (presence-absence) for herbaceous plants across a number of European habitats (ecoregions). Species occurrence is accompanied by the corresponding plant's maximun stem height values. This dataset has been used to unveil patterns of herbaceous plant height clustering in mid-latitude European ecoregions.

Presence-absence data for herbaceous plants were drawn from Atlas Florae Europaeae (Jalas & Suominen, 1964-1999). Associated to each species, a dominant habitat (ecoregion) was assigned according to the WWF Biomes of the World classification. Each herbaceous species in an ecoregion was characterized by its maximum stem height. Mean height values were obtained for different sources. In order to correlate clustering patterns with productivity measures, actual evapotranspiration (AET) data is also provided. AET maps were ...