The relationships of plant species occupancy to niches and traits vary with spatial scale ...

• Main Authors: Mod, Heidi, Rissanen, Tuuli, Niittynen, Pekka, Soininen, Janne, Luoto, Miska
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2023
• Subjects: FOS Earth and related environmental sciences; vascular plant cover; Arctic; vegetation; rarity; prevalence; abiotic filtering; biotic interactions; scale-dependency; high-latitudes; Norway; Saana; Northern Finland
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t1r; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t1r

Aim: Support for different underlying mechanisms of species occupancy is inconsistent, yet this could be related to spatial scale. Since abiotic filtering typically acts at broader scales than biotic interactions, we hypothesise that occupancy could be more driven by species’ abiotic niche (i.e., tolerance and preference of abiotic conditions) at broad scales, whereas species’ traits affecting competitive ability could be more important at fine scales. Here we test these hypotheses by assessing relationships of occupancy to niche and trait metrics across spatial scales. Location: Four study areas located north of Arctic Circle. Taxon: Vascular plants. Methods: We derived occupancy for 106 species at four spatial scales (Micro-scale with plot size of 0.04 m 2 and extent of 2 km, Local-scale with plot size of 4 m 2 and extent of 40 km, Regional-scale with plot size of 4 ha and extent of 800 km, and Polar-scale with plot size of 4 km 2 and extent of 5200 km). We then assessed using generalized additive models ... : spOccu_atMicroScale consists of 1920 plots of size 20 x 20 cm where all vascular plants were identified. Plots are organised in 20 x 8 m grids (12 grids) and the plots of 20 x 20 cm were randomly placed inside the 1 m2 plots of the grids (one 20 x 20 cm plot per one 1m2 plot). Plots are situated in Northern Finland on the slopes of mount Saana. spOccu_atLocalScale consists of 573 sites were species occurrences from four 1 m2 plots are pooled to a site. Site consists of four plots five meters from the center of the site to each direction (N, E, S, W). From each plot all vascular plants were identified. Data was collected from Northern Finland and Norway. data_Regio_dryad consists of 296223 occurrences (coordinates) of 211 species from mainland areas of Finland, Sweden, and Norway north of Arctic Circle. Occurrences were derived from GBIF database (GBIF.org (29 March 2020) GBIF Occurrence Download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.nolkaq), complemented with entries from national databases of Finland ...