Tree functional traits across Caribbean island dry forests are remarkably similar

Delineation of potential dry forest and estimated actual dry forest on Caribbean islands. Potential dry forest is delineated based on CHELSA climate data (www.chelsa-climate.org) and the FAO definition of dry forest. Estimated actual dry forest is corrected for land cover using data from Hansen et al. (2022) https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac46ec. Areas of potential dry forest, estimated actual dry forest, and area of built-up land covers are summarized by islands and joined to CHELSA bioclimatic variables for selected islands where data on functional traits are available. Trait values by sites are also included. The package consists of data outputs and R scripts to reproduce the data outputs from identified publicly available data sources.

Methods
Areas potentially supporting tropical dry forest in the Caribbean were delineated based on precipitation normals data from CHELSA and a climatically-based definition of tropical dry forest established by the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations (FAO): total annual precipitation 500 to 1500 mm, 5-8 mo < 100 mm precipitation. Land cover data (2019 conditions) from Hansen et al. were used to constrain estimated actual dry forest based on the intersection of climate-based potential dry forest with forested land cover. To facilitate analysis with functional trait data obtained from forests on a subset of islands, data on the area of potential and estimated actual dry forest and forest and built land covers were summarized by island and associated with a standard suite of 19 bioclimate variables. R scripts showing and reproducing our detailed methods are provided with the repository.