Plant co-occurrence and functional trait data from drylands, along with soil, grazing pressure, and climate data

Plant functional traits can influence interaction outcomes between nurse and target plants through a “functional trait match”, which occurs when the traits of nurse plants ameliorate their environment, and target plants possess traits that allow them to benefit from this ameliorated environment. We investigated how the traits of putative nurse species affect interaction outcomes across global drylands and determined the functional match that promotes facilitation. We also investigated how grazing pressure and global climatic and edaphic gradients affected this trait match. We used a collaborative survey conducted across 29 sites from five continents, where we gathered in situ co-occurrences of dominant species (‘nurses’) and other vascular plant species, as well as their functional traits [plant height and leaf dry matter content (LDMC)]. Climate, edaphic variables, and grazing pressure were measured in situ or extracted from databases. We used a model-building approach to determine the..., , # Plant co-occurrence and functional trait data from drylands, along with soil and climate data

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.9cnp5hqx5](10.5061/dryad.9cnp5hqx5)

## Description of the data and file structure

This data is linked to the research article titled \"Plant trait matching occurs in facilitative interactions across global drylands\". This paper investigates the role of functional traits and environmental gradients in determining plant-plant interactions in global drylands. Specifically, the paper investigates whether the traits of dominant plants (putative nurse plants), along with soil, climate, and grazing factors, affect interaction outcomes. Furthermore, the paper investigates the trait difference between facilitative pairs of dominant and target species (the trait match) and whether the trait match changes along environmental gradients. 

This data was collected as part of the BIODESERT project. Refer to Maestre et al. (2022) for details of the sampling design used to collec...,