Science Enabled by Specimen Data

Margaroni, S., K. B. Petersen, R. Gleadow, and M. Burd. 2019. The role of spore size in the global pattern of co‐occurrence among Selaginella species. Journal of Biogeography 46: 807–815. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13532

Aim: Separation of regeneration niches may promote coexistence among closely related plant species, but there is little evidence that regeneration traits affect species ranges at broad geographical scales. We address patterns of co‐occurrence within the genus Selaginella, an ancient lineage of free‐…

Karger, D. N., M. Kessler, O. Conrad, P. Weigelt, H. Kreft, C. König, and N. E. Zimmermann. 2019. Why tree lines are lower on islands—Climatic and biogeographic effects hold the answer J. Grytnes [ed.],. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28: 839–850. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12897

Aim: To determine the global position of tree line isotherms, compare it with observed local tree limits on islands and mainlands, and disentangle the potential drivers of a difference between tree line and local tree limit. Location: Global. Time period: 1979–2013. Major taxa studied: Trees. Method…

Chevalier, M. 2019. Enabling possibilities to quantify past climate from fossil assemblages at a global scale. Global and Planetary Change 175: 27–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2019.01.016

The field of quantitative palaeoclimatology has made significant progress in the past decades. However, this progress has been spatially heterogeneous and strong discrepancies – both in terms of quality and density – exist between Europe and North America and the rest of the world. The need to balan…

Joffard, N., F. Massol, M. Grenié, C. Montgelard, and B. Schatz. 2018. Effect of pollination strategy, phylogeny and distribution on pollination niches of Euro‐Mediterranean orchids I. Bartomeus [ed.],. Journal of Ecology 107: 478–490. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13013

1.Pollination niches are important components of ecological niches and have played a major role in the diversification of Angiosperms. In this study, we focused on Euro‐Mediterranean orchids, which use diverse pollination strategies and interact with various functional groups of insects. In these or…

Petersen, K. B., and M. Burd. 2018. The adaptive value of heterospory: Evidence from Selaginella. Evolution 72: 1080–1091. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.13484

Heterospory was a pivotal evolutionary innovation for land plants, but it has never been clear why it evolved. We used the geographic distributions of 114 species of the heterosporous lycophyte Selaginella to explore the functional ecology of microspore and megaspore size, traits that would be corre…

Caudullo, G., E. Welk, and J. San-Miguel-Ayanz. 2017. Chorological maps for the main European woody species. Data in Brief 12: 662–666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2017.05.007

A novel chorological data compilation for the main European tree and shrub species is presented. This dataset was produced by combining numerous and heterogeneous data collected from 20th century atlas monographs providing complete species distribution maps, and from more recent national to regional…

Uludag, A., N. Aksoy, A. Yazlık, Z. F. Arslan, E. Yazmış, I. Uremis, T. A. Cossu, et al. 2017. Alien flora of Turkey: checklist, taxonomic composition and ecological attributes. NeoBiota 35: 61–85. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.35.12460

The paper provides an updated checklist of the alien flora of Turkey with information on its structure. The alien flora of Turkey comprises 340 taxa, among which there are 321 angiosperms, 17 gymnosperms and two ferns. Of the total number of taxa, 228 (68%) are naturalized and 112 (32%) are casual. …