A handbook for standardised measurements of regenerative plant functional traits

Abstract

A lack of standardised sampling protocols prevents functional traits from expressing their full potential to revolutionise plant ecology, biogeography, and evolutionary biology. Handbooks providing protocols for standardised measurements of plant functional traits allow researchers to tackle large-scale ecological questions but have traditionally focused on vegetative traits such as leaves, stems and roots. This handbook provides standardised protocols for 58 regeneration-related traits of flowers and gametophytes (10 traits), fruits (6 traits), seeds (36 traits) and seedlings (6 traits). It is the first effort to standardise sampling for relevant regeneration traits to understand processes, such as pollination, frugivory, seed dispersal, seed longevity, germination, and seedling establishment. The protocols were designed to embrace the diversity of ecological contexts experienced by flowers, gametophytes, fruits, seeds, and seedlings and incorporate methods for temperate to tropical, dry to moist and fire-prone to fire-sensitive ecosystems. We offer general guidelines for sampling, storing, and processing regenerative traits. Before laying out the protocol, we briefly describe each trait functionality, trade-offs, and sources of variability to give a broad context. Standardised protocols to estimate regenerative plant traits will unlock the full potential of plants to mitigate land use and climate change impacts, and restore destroyed ecosystems.

Plant phenotyping relevance

植物の再生関連機能形質58項目について、標準化されたサンプリング・保存・処理・測定プロトコルを体系的に提示するハンドブックであり、形質取得法が中心的な貢献である。

Code and data availability

This is a methods handbook for standardised trait measurements; it contains no paper-specific phenotype datasets, images, or author analysis code. All URLs mentioned (SID, observation.org, the 'seedr' R package) are external third-party resources or generic tools, not assets reproducing this paper's own measurements or

No evidence-backed public reproduction asset is currently recorded.