Leaf-level resistance to frost, drought and heat covaries across European temperate tree seedlings

Most trees die as seedlings, with harsh environmental conditions, such as early-spring frosts and summer heat waves, being important drivers of early mortality. However, it remains unclear whether tolerance to different environmental extremes (e.g. frost vs. heat) trades-off, or covaries synergistically and how stress tolerances relate to growth rates and life history strategies. Given the likely role of extreme environmental conditions as environmental filters, the ability to tolerate different stressors at the seedling stage could shape the occurrence and composition of present and future forests.
We explored the relationships between different leaf-level stress tolerances, functional traits and geographic distributions across 22 species of temperate European tree seedlings. We measured indicators of tolerance to frost, drought and heat and related these values to growth rates and to important functional traits (e.g., leaf mass per area, stem specific density). Finally, we explored th..., , , # Leaf-level resistance to frost, drought and heat covaries across European temperate tree seedlings

This is metadata for the dataset linked to the following publication: Visakorpi K., Manzanedo R., Görlich A. S., Schiendorfer K., Altermatt Bieger A., Gates E. and Hille Ris Lambers J. Leaf-level resistance to frost, drought and heat covaries across European temperate tree seedlings. Journal of Ecology, 2023.

The dataset consists of seven .csv files which contain the data, and one .R file which contains the R code to reproduce the analyses and figures.

In all datafiles, species are identified with code of three first letters of genus name + three first letters of species name. The full species names are:

Abialb = Abies alba
Acecam = Acer campestre
Acepla = Acer platanoides
Acepse = Acer pseudoplatanus
Alnglu = Alnus glutinosa
Alninc = Alnus incana
Betpen = Betula pendula
Carbet = Carpinus betulus
Fagsyl = Fagys sylvatica
Lardec = Larix decidua
Picabi = Picea abies
Pincem = Pinus ce...