Co-occurring congeners coordinate drought and shade tolerance traits along gradients of canopy openness

By capturing tissue-level responses, physiological traits related to water status and photosynthesis are increasingly being used to explain species-level responses to environmental conditions such as shade or drought. Such mechanistic traits, able to link plant physiology directly to environmental conditions, could inform broader studies of changing community composition in an era of drastic shifts in climate or disturbance regimes. However, understanding the extent of inter/intraspecies trait variation and how such traits vary along common environmental gradients remains an open question in understanding physiological traits as species-level characteristics. To address this, we quantified gas exchange traits, turgor loss point (ΨTLP), isotopic discrimination, stem hydraulic conductivity (KS), and associated functional traits in co-occurring individuals of Viburnum lentago, V. trilobum, V. acerifolium, and V. rafinesquianum, while also quantifying canopy coverage and soil conditions. Al..., , , # Data from: Co-occurring congeners coordinate drought and shade tolerance traits along gradients of canopy openness

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j3tx95xrz](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j3tx95xrz)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: Trait_cld_formatted.csv

**Description:** Trait_cld_formatted.csv summarizes the results of ANOVA and Tukey's Post-hoc tests for all traits included in the manuscript. The first column outlines the traits and respective units, while each subsequent column contains trait means for each species. Cell values are the species-mean trait values and compact letter display results for each trait.

##### Variables

* Trait: trait label
* Unit : units for each trait
* V. acerifolium: average trait values and cld for *V. acerifolium*
* V.lentago: average trait values and cld for *V.lentago*
* V.opulus: average trait values and cld for *V.opulus*
* V.rafinesquianum: average trait values and cld for *V.rafinesquianum*
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