Biodiversity change forecasts rely on long‐term time series, but such data are often scarce in space and time. Here, we interpolated spatiotemporal changes in species richness using a new method based on machine learning that does not require temporal replication at sites. Using 698,692 one‐time sampled vegetation plots, we estimated trends in vascular plant alpha diversity across Europe and validated our approach against 22,8...

Functional island biogeography can provide eco–evolutionary insights into which main drivers contribute to shaping the distribution of organisms' forms and functions on islands. It does so by examining trait patterns. As a result, traits are increasingly studied on islands, either along insularity gradients or by comparing patterns of island versus mainland biota. So far, functional island biogeography has investigated trends...

Aim Plant functional traits are frequently proposed as influential factors in species distribution. However, there is a gap in assessing how plant resource‐economic traits relate to the size and shape of a species' geographical range, and to what extent these relationships are conserved over evolutionary history. Specifically, an acquisitive strategy (characterized by heightened metabolism, shorter lifespan and quicker generat...

Aim In salt‐affected environments, salinity shapes ecosystem functions and species composition. Apart from salinity, however, we know little about how soil chemical factors affect plant species. We hypothesized that specific ions, most of which contribute to salinity, co‐determine plant niche differentiation. We asked if the importance of ions differs for species with (halophytes) and without (associated species) physiological...

Motivation Although dispersal ability is one of the key features determining the spatial dynamics of plant populations and the structure of plant communities, it is also one of the traits for which we still lack data for most species. We compiled a comprehensive dataset of seed dispersal distance classes and predominant dispersal modes for most European vascular plants. Our seed dispersal dataset can be used in functional biog...

Motivation Indicator values are numerical values used to characterize the ecological niches of species and to estimate their occurrence along gradients. Indicator values on climatic and edaphic niches of plant species have received considerable attention in ecological research, whereas data on the optimal positioning of species along disturbance gradients are less developed. Here, we present a new data set of disturbance indic...

Sacred natural sites (SNS) have gained recognition from conservationists, and are regarded as the oldest form of habitat protection in human history. Many case studies and literature reviews have been published on the subject. However, an updated and global-level synthesis on the effect of SNS on biodiversity conservation is still lacking. Here, we provide the first systematic review on SNS and biodiversity conservation, aimin...

Elevational gradients are often used to quantify how traits of plant species respond to abiotic and biotic environmental variations. Yet, such analyses are frequently restricted spatially and applied along single slopes or mountain ranges. Since we know little on the response of intraspecific leaf traits to elevation across the globe, we here perform a global meta‐analysis of leaf traits in 109 plant species located in 4 conti...

Aim Experimental nitrogen (N) addition (fertilization) studies are commonly used to quantify the impacts of increased N inputs on plant biodiversity. However, given that plant community responses can vary considerably among individual studies, there is a clear need to synthesize and generalize findings with meta‐analytical approaches. Our goal was to quantify changes in species richness and abundance in plant communities in re...

The contemporary state of functional traits and species richness in plant communities depends on legacy effects of past disturbances. Whether temporal responses of community properties to current environmental changes are altered by such legacies is, however, unknown. We expect global environmental changes to interact with land‐use legacies given different community trajectories initiated by prior management, and subsequent re...