Data from: The role of functional strategies in global plant distribution

Understanding the determinants of species distributions is a central topic
in ecology. Competition, stress tolerance and colonization, respectively
represented by Grime’s competitor (C), stress-tolerator (S) and ruderal
(R) schemes, are three important functions that interactively influence
plant distributions. In this study, we compiled a dataset of 2645 vascular
plant species to explore the roles of the CSR strategies in global plant
distribution. We analyzed the associations between the CSR scores and
species range size with phylogenetic generalized least square (PGLS)
models and phylogenetic path analysis, both of which accounted for the
effects of species phylogenetic relatedness, longevity, and growth form.
The functional strategy-range size associations differed across different
distributional ranges and growth forms. Specifically, species global and
native range sizes were positively associated with the R score; species
naturalized range size was positively associated with the C score; and all
range-size measurements were negatively associated with the S score. These
patterns were mostly driven by herbs but not shrubs or trees. For species
global and native-range distributions, the patterns of shrubs were even
opposite to those of herbs. Our work emphasizes the importance of
distinguishing the functional strategy-distribution associations between
different distributional ranges and growth forms for ecosystem
conservation and invasion risk prediction, because of the trade-offs among
the CSR strategies.