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We present PADAPT 1.0, the Pannonian Database of Plant Traits which relies on regional data sources and integrates existing data and new measurements on a wide range of traits and attributes of the plant species of the Pannonian Biogeographical Region and makes it freely accessible atwww.padapt.eu. The current version covers the species of the region occurring in Hungary (cc. 90% of the region’s flora) and consists of 126,337 records on 2745 taxa. There are 53 plant attributes in PADAPT 1.0 organised in six major groups: (i) Habitus and strategy, (ii) Reproduction, (iii) Kariology, (iv) Distribution and conservation, (v) Ecological indicator values, and (vi) Leaf traits. By including species of the eastern part of Europe not covered by other databases, PADAPT can facilitate studying the flora and vegetation of the eastern part of the continent. Data collection will continue in the future and the PADAPT team welcomes researchers interested in contributing with data. The main task before an updated version of the database is to include species of the Pannonian region not covered by the current version. In conclusion, although data coverage is far from complete, PADAPT meets the longstanding need for a regional database of the Pannonian flora.

Major dimensions of plant ecological strategies have been widely studied bringing forward the concept of ‘economic spectra’ of plants. Sexual reproductive traits, ‘floral traits’, have been largely neglected in this context, despite their strong link to fitness. Here, we aimed at integrating floral traits into the dimensionality of plant form and function so far dominated by vegetative traits. We used principal component analyses and constructed trait networks to assess the correlation structure of leaf, belowground, plant size-related, and floral traits. We studied forbs within two independent datasets; one compiled from central European trait databases and one sampled in the Austrian Alps. Floral traits defined the second dimension of trait variability within both datasets, while plant size determined the first dimension. Floral traits were largely independent from the leaf economic spectrum. Flower size, however, positively scaled with plant size and leaf size. Mating system was the most well-connected trait across modules of plant tissue/organ types. The independence of floral traits was consistent also after accounting for phylogenetic relationships between species. Floral traits explained a unique part of the variation in plant form and function and thus, likely play a distinctive ecological role within the whole plant economic spectrum., The study was financially supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GACR 22-32198S). AE-V and LG received support by the long-term research development project number RVO 67985939 of the Czech Academy of Sciences. FB was supported by the Spanish Plan Nacional de I+D+i (project PGC2018-099027-B-I00). Data collection was partially funded by the Austrian Science Fund (P29142-B29).

SummaryEcological theory posits that temporal stability patterns in plant populations are associated with differences in species’ ecological strategies. However, empirical evidence is lacking about which traits, or trade-offs, underlie species stability, specially across different ecosystems.To address this, we compiled a global collection of long-term permanent vegetation records (>7000 plots from 78 datasets) from a wide range of habitats and combined this with existing trait databases. We tested whether the observed inter-annual variability in species abundance (coefficient of variation) was related to multiple individual traits and multivariate axes of trait variations (PCoA axes).We found that species with greater leaf dry matter content and seed mass were consistently more stable over time (lower variability in species abundance) although other leaf traits played a significant role as well, albeit weaker. Using multivariate axes did not improve predictions by specific traits.Our results confirm existing theory, providing compelling empirical evidence on the importance of specific traits, which point at ecological trade-offs in different resource use and dispersal strategies, on the stability of plant populations worldwide.

Analysing temporal patterns in plant communities is extremely important to quantify the extent and the consequences of ecological changes, especially considering the current biodiversity crisis. Long-term data collected through the regular sampling of permanent plots represent the most accurate resource to study ecological succession, analyse the stability of a community over time and understand the mechanisms driving vegetation change. We hereby present the LOng-Term Vegetation Sampling (LOTVS) initiative, a global collection of vegetation time-series derived from the regular monitoring of vascular plants in permanent plots. With 79 datasets from five continents and 7789 vegetation time-series monitored for at least six years and mostly on an annual basis, LOTVS possibly represents the largest collection of temporally fine-grained vegetation time-series derived from permanent plots and made accessible to the research community. As such, it has an outstanding potential to support innovative research in the fields of vegetation science, plant ecology and temporal ecology.

Heat tolerance of photosystem II (PSII) was examined in Siberian flag (Iris sibirica L.) living in different microhabitats of a non-forested enclosed depression surface (doline) on the Bükk-plateau. Although the microclimatic parameters of the habitats with different facing sites show sharp contrasts, there was no significant difference between the heat tolerance of PSII in leaves of I. sibirica growing in these expositions neither in dark- nor in light-adapted state.

Functional and phylogenetic diversity (FD and PD respectively) of the resident community are expected to exert a key role in community resistance to colonization by surrounding species, and their establishment success. However, few studies have explored this topic experimentally or evaluated the interactive effects of these diversity measures. We implemented a diversity experiment to disentangle the role of FD and PD by sowing mixtures of 6 species, drawn from a pool of 19 species naturally coexisting in central European mesic meadows. The mixtures were designed to cover four independent combinations of high and low FD and PD. Species covers were estimated in spring and late summer over two growing seasons. We then assessed the establishment success of colonizers as a function of their mean traits and phylogenetic distance to the resident (i.e. sown) communities, as well as the resistance of the resident communities to natural colonizers as a function of their functional and phylogenetic structure. Results generally indicated a temporal shift regarding which trait values made a colonizer successful, from an acquisitive strategy in early stages to a more conservative trait syndrome in later stages. FD decreased community resistance to natural colonization. However, PD tempered this effect: with high PD, FD was not significant, suggesting complementary information between these two components of biodiversity. On average, colonizing species were more functionally distant from the resident species in sown communities with high functional diversity, i.e. those that were more colonized. Synthesis. Our results confirm an interplay between FD and PD during community assembly processes, namely resistance to colonizers, suggesting that these two descriptors of biodiversity only partially overlap in their contribution to the overall ecological structure of a community. The hypothesis that higher FD increases resistance through a more complete use of resources was challenged. Results rather suggested that greater FD could provide an unsaturated functional trait space allowing functionally unique species to occupy it., The study was supported by Czech Science Foundation grant GA16‐15012S. C.P.C. was supported by a Marie Curie Intra‐European Fellowship within the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (TANDEM; project 626392) and the Estonian Research Council (project PSG293). E.V. was funded by the 2017 program for attracting and retaining talent of Comunidad de Madrid (no. 2017‐T2/AMB‐5406).

QUESTIONS: The majority of theories of trait‐based plant community assembly have been developed and tested predominantly in terrestrial ecosystems. Studies investigating the functional trait composition of aquatic plant communities and their relation to environmental determinants remain scarce. Macrophytes are essential components of aquatic ecosystems, and a more detailed knowledge of their trait‐based assembly is crucial for their management. We identified how plant functional traits respond to environmental gradients in streams and rivers. LOCATION: Danube River Catchment, Hungary. METHODS: We studied the processes governing community assembly along major environmental gradients related to carbon‐ and nutrient‐limiting factors as well as physical strain. We used six continuous traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, seed weight, seed shape, woodiness) and calculated community‐weighted mean and standardised effect size of functional diversity for each community. We then used stepwise regression analyses for each trait along the environmental gradients to test which environmental factors explain the changes in community‐weighted mean and functional diversity. All analyses were conducted for aquatic (hydato‐helophyte) and riverbank species separately. RESULTS: We found that the effect of environmental filtering significantly increased toward higher pH, indicating the response of functional traits to carbon limitation. Our results showed trait convergence among riverbank species in rivers with higher productivity. Larger functional diversity (i.e., trait divergence) among hydato‐helophyte species suggests an increase in the diversity of resource acquisition strategies under higher productivity. CONCLUSIONS: Here, we have shown that the functional trait distribution of aquatic and riverbank plant communities responds to major environmental drivers related to nutrient and carbon availability. The understanding of how community assembly mechanisms varied along environmental gradients might be useful when proposing future management and restoration plans and actions towards the conservation of the aquatic vegetation in streams and rivers.

Under global change, how biological diversity and ecosystem services are maintained in time is a fundamental question. Ecologists have long argued about multiple mechanisms by which local biodiversity might control the temporal stability of ecosystem properties. Accumulating theories and empirical evidence suggest that, together with different population and community parameters, these mechanisms largely operate through differences in functional traits among organisms. We review potential trait-stability mechanisms together with underlying tests and associated metrics. We identify various trait-based components, each accounting for different stability mechanisms, that contribute to buffering, or propagating, the effect of environmental fluctuations on ecosystem functioning. This comprehensive picture, obtained by combining different puzzle pieces of trait-stability effects, will guide future empirical and modeling investigations., This study is the result of an international workshop financed by the Valencian government in Spain (Generalitat Valenciana, reference AORG/2018/) and was supported by Spanish Plan Nacional de I+D+i (project PGC2018-099027-B-I00). E.V. was supported by the 2017 program for attracting and retaining talent of Comunidad de Madrid (no. 2017-T2/ AMB-5406).

Plant functional traits are now frequently used instead of species identity to identify how plant species co-exist in assemblages. One notion is that species inhabiting the same environment have more characteristics in common than species from different habitats, leading to different prevailing dominant traits along environmental gradients, and also to a lesser diversity of traits in habitats that impose a stronger filter on these traits. Though such patterns have been demonstrated for different environmental drivers and different traits, studies using easily available traits connected to above ground processes (i.e. traits of the leaf-height-seed, or LHS, strategy scheme) are largely overrepresented in these analyses. Here we combined data on clonal and bud bank traits, representing the ability to reproduce and spread vegetatively, with LHS trait data and examined how these traits varied in relation to the vegetational composition of 29 Central-European habitat types. Our analysis focused on determining whether clonal/bud bank or LHS traits play an important role for environmental filtering along gradients approximated by Ellenberg indicator values (EIV) across these habitats. Our results show that clonal and bud bank traits are at least as – if not more – important for the differentiation of the 29 habitat types. Overall, diversity and dominance of clonal and bud bank traits was more strongly correlated with gradients of light availability, temperature, moisture, soil reaction, and nutrient availability across these habitats than it was the case for traits of the leaf-height-seed scheme. Our results call for a stronger integration of belowground traits into the functional traits approach in plant ecology and for an extension of efforts to collect such data.

Jelen közleményünk annak a sorozatnak a második része, melynek célja a Magyarország edényes növényfajainak elterjedési atlasza térképeinek kiegészítése, főként aktuális előfordulási adatokkal. Ezúttal 612 edényes taxon előfordulási adatait közöljük az ország szinte egész területéről (mintegy 283 flóratérképezési kvadrátból), de legnagyobb számban az Északi-középhegységből. Az adatok között ritkább őshonos taxonok (e.g. Antennaria dioica, Bupleurum pachnospermum, Carex rostrata, Ceratocephala testiculata, Cicuta virosa, Cirsium boujartii, Epipactis moravica, Lycopsis arvensis, Parnassia palustris, Pyrus nivalis, Rumex kerneri, Rumex pulcher, Silene nemoralis, Stellaria alsine, Teucrium botrys, Vicia lutea), ritka, vagy legalábbis adathiányos idegenhonos fajok (például Nonea lutea, Panicum dichotomiflorum, Silybum marianum) mellett országosan elterjedt, de többé-kevésbé alulreprezentált fajok (például Eragrostis minor, Heliotropium europaeum, Saxifraga tridactylites) esetében is közöljük az Atlasz térképeihez képest újnak bizonyuló lelőhelyeket. Közleményünk számottevően hozzájárul a Ranunculus illyricus és a Spergula pentandra nyírségi, valamint a Senecio vernalis hazai elterjedésének ismeretéhez.

1.Floral deception is widespread in orchids, with more than one third of the species being pollinated this way. The evolutionary success of deceptive orchids is puzzling, as species employing this strategy are thought to have low reproductive success (less flowers yielding fruits) because of low pollination rates. However, direct measurements of total seed production in orchids – which is a better measure of reproductive success – are scarce due to the extremely small size of their seeds. 2.Here, we quantified seed numbers in 1,015 fruits belonging to 48 orchid species from the Pannonian ecoregion (central Europe) and obtained fruit-set and thousand-seed weight data for these species from the literature. We used phylogenetic comparative methods to test the hypothesis that deceptive species should compensate for their lower fruit-set by having either more flowers, larger seeds or more seeds in a fruit. 3.Similarly to previous studies, we found that deceptive orchids have substantially lower fruits-set than nectar-rewarding ones. Also, we found that deceptive species have more seeds in a fruit but not more flowers or larger seeds compared to nectar-rewarding ones. Based on our results, deceptive species compensate for their lower fruit-set by having higher seed numbers per fruit. As a consequence, their seed numbers per shoot do not differ from that of nectar-rewarding ones. 4.Together with other benefits of deceptive pollination (e.g. lower energy expenditure due to the lack of nectar production and higher genetic variability due to decreased probability of geitonogamous pollination), our results can explain why deceptive strategies are so widespread in the orchid family. 5.Synthesis. Our results indicate that deceptive orchids can compensate for their lower fruit-set by having more (but not larger) seeds in a fruit than rewarding species. These findings highlight possible ways in which plants can increase their reproductive success in face of pollinator limitation. We emphasize that fruit-set in itself is an inappropriate measure of the reproductive success of orchids – the total number of seeds per shoot is a much better approximation.

The importance of studies based on plant functional traits is indicated by the huge number of papers (more than 5000) published in the last 15 years in this topic. In community ecology the recent trend of studying organisms on the functional- rather than on the taxonomic level is quite significant. In this review we attempted to summarise the applicability of functional plant traits commonly used in ecological studies. We discussed the levels of functional categorisation, described the different plant strategies based on functional traits and emphasised the usage of standardised measurements. The most outstanding trait databases are introduced here, showing their availability, content and specialities. This review is intended as an introduction to the topic and can later be completed by papers elaborating on how plant functional traits are used in theoretical and applied plant ecology.

The main aim of the present work is to contribute with new data to the distribution maps published recently in Atlas Florae Hungariae. Occurrence data of 297 vascular plant taxa from 247 flora mapping quarter quadrates (CEU) are presented. This floristic paper is somehow unusual because besides the occurrence data of rare or sporadic taxa (e.g. Armoracia macrocarpa (Waldst. et Kit.) Kit. ex Baumg., Samolus valerandi L., Epipactis voethii Robatsch), frequent, but more or less underrepresented taxa (e.g. Ranunculus ficaria L., Viola kitaibeliana Roem. et Schult., Gagea villosa (M. Bieb.) Duby), as well as alien taxa (e.g. Cymbalaria muralis G. Gaertn., B. Mey. et Scherb., Potentilla indica (Andrews) Focke, Tragus racemosus (L.) All.) are also enumerated, since our intention was to fill the – sometimes evident – gaps in the Atlas. The name initials of the author(s) who actually found the given occurrence are presented in brackets at each record.

The reproductive success of orchids is traditionally estimated by determining the fruit-set of individuals. Here, we investigated both the fruit and the seed production of three orchid species and the factors that may affect individual fruit-set, like pollination strategy, individual traits or the annual amount of precipitation. The species [Dactylorhiza sambucina (L.) Soó, Dactylorhiza majalis (Rchb.) P. F. HuntSummerhayes and Platanthera bifolia (L.) L. C. M. Richard] were studied in three consecutive years (2010-2012) in the Bükk Mountains, Hungary. All three species were proved to be non-autogamous by a bagging experiment. Data analyses showed significant differences between seed numbers but not between fruit-sets of species. There was no statistical difference in individual reproductive success between wet and dry years, however, the effect of the annual amount of precipitation is significant on the population level. Comparison of published fruit-set data revealed accordance with our results in P. bifolia, but not in D. sambucina and D. majalis. We assume that the surprisingly high fruit-set values of the two Dactylorhiza species may be due to the fact that the pollination crisis reported from Western European countries is not an actual problem in the Bükk Mountains, Hungary.