dcsimg

Global Wood Density Database
(global_wood_dens)

Zanne AE Lopez Gonzalez G Coomes DA Ilic J Jansen S Lewis SL Miller RB Swenson NG Wiemann MC Chave J Data from Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum Dryad Digital Repository doi 10 5061 dryad 234 Wood performs several essential functions in plants including mechanically supporting aboveground tissue storing water and other resources and transporting sap Woody tissues are likely to face physiological structural and defensive trade offs How a plant optimizes among these competing functions can have major ecological implications which have been under appreciated by ecologists compared to the focus they have given to leaf function To draw together our current understanding of wood function we identify and collate data on the major wood functional traits including the largest wood density database to date 8412 taxa mechanical strength measures and anatomical features as well as clade specific features such as secondary chemistry We then show how wood traits are related to one another highlighting functional trade offs and to ecological and demographic plant features growth form growth rate latitude ecological setting We suggest that similar to the manifold that tree species leaf traits cluster around the leaf economics spectrum a similar wood economics spectrum may be defined We then discuss the biogeography evolution and biogeochemistry of the spectrum and conclude by pointing out the major gaps in our current knowledge of wood functional traits

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