Data from: Defining functional biomes and monitoring their change globally

Biomes are important constructs for organizing understanding of how the
worlds’ major terrestrial ecosystems differ from one another and for
monitoring change in these ecosystems. Yet existing biome schemes have
been criticized for being overly subjective and for explicitly or
implicitly invoking climate. We propose a new biome map and classification
scheme that uses information on (i) an index of vegetation productivity,
(ii) whether the minimum of vegetation activity is in the driest or
coldest part of the year, and (iii) vegetation height. Although biomes
produced on the basis of this classification show a strong spatial
coherence, they show little congruence with existing biome classification
schemes. Our biome map provides an alternative classification scheme for
synthesizing data of the biogeochemical rates of terrestrial ecosystems.
We use this new biome classification scheme to analyse the patterns of
biome change observed over recent decades. Overall, 13 - 14% of analysed
pixels shifted in biome state over the 30-year study period. A wide range
of biome transitions were observed. For example, biomes with tall
vegetation and seasonality associated with cold in the unfavourable
growing period shifted to higher productivity biome states. Sites
dominated by biomes characterized by short vegetation and low seasonality
shifted to seasonally moisture-limited biome states. Our findings and
method provide a new source of data for rigorously monitoring global
vegetation change, analysing drivers of vegetation change and for
benchmarking models of terrestrial ecosystem function.