defining the pyro-thermal niche: do seed traits, ecosystem type and phylogeny influence thermal thresholds in seeds with physical dormancy

Seeds are a key pathway for plant population recovery following disturbance. To prevent germination during unsuitable conditions, most species produce dormant seeds. In fire-prone regions, physical dormancy (PY) enables seeds to germinate after fire. The thermal niche, incorporating seed dormancy and mortality temperature responses, has not been characterised for PY seeds from fire prone environments.
We aimed to assess variation in thermal thresholds between species with PY seeds and if the pyro-thermal niche is aligned with seed mass, ecosystem type or phylogenetic relatedness.
We collected post heat-shock germination data for 58 Australian species that produce PY seeds. We applied species-specific thermal performance curves to define three critical thresholds (DRT50, dormancy release temperature; Topt, optimum dormancy release temperature and LT50, lethal temperature), defining the pyro-thermal niche. Each species was assigned a mean seed weight and ecosystem type. We constructed a p..., Species selection and data acquisition.
We set out to acquire seed germination data following heat-shock for as many species as possible across temperate Australia. However, to provide accurate estimates of threshold conditions, we applied three rules that allowed data from multiple sources to be brought together; 1) seeds needed to be heated from ~40°C through to at least 120 °C (or higher if there was no evidence of seed mortality at 120°C),  2) seeds had to be heated for either 5 mins and/or 10mins and 3) there was > two non-zero germination data points within the treatments (e.g., seeds treated at 40 °C, 60 °C, 80 °C, 100 °C and 120 °C, but only recorded ~ 0%  germination at 80 and 100 would be discarded). Where there was insufficient data points to model the response, we removed these datasets were removed, as fitting response curves to two data points induces significant error into hypothetical responses. However, this was a rare occurrence, and only appeared once across all s..., , # Data from: defining the pyro-thermal niche: do seed traits, ecosystem type and phylogeny influence thermal thresholds in seeds with physical dormancy

\[[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51cm3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51cm3)] ([https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51cm3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j9kd51cm3))

This dataset provides the full data requirements to implement the \"pyrothermal niche\" markdown file in R. It also includes model fitting figures for each of the species used in the analysis.

**Description of the data and file structure**

The script provided calls upon each of the included .csv files and the phylogenetic tree. The bulk of the csv files are subsets and cuts of the two main datasets, germination data and master data.csv. The figures included here are directly associated with the species-specific model selection undertaken in the manuscript. Each figure indicates the model fit of the 7 models used and included suitablity metrics for each model. For furt...