News Archive

Upcoming Open TRY Workshop
5th Open Workshop of the TRY initiative: 3-5 September 2013, Leipzig, Germany. (link)

New guidelines for trait measurements
N. Pérez-Harguindeguy et al. New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide. Australian Journal of Botany (link)

Paper published
Loranger et al. Predicting invertebrate herbivory from plant traits: polycultures show strong non-additive effects. Ecology. (link)

Paper published
Kazakou et al. Are trait-based species’ rankings consistent across datasets and spatial scales? Journal of Vegetation Science. (link)

Call for trait data
We are working on an improved version of the TRY database. In this context we are also looking for new datasets of plant traits. Please contact Jens Kattge (jkattge@bgc-jena.mpg.de). Details for data contribution: (link)

Paper published
Demey et al.: Nutrient input from hemiparasitic litter favors plant species with a fast-growth strategy. Plant and Soil. (link)

PhD scholarship at the Wright Lab (Macquarie University)
The Wright Lab at Macquarie University has just advertised a 3.5 year PhD scholarship: “Scaling functional traits to whole-plant growth”. Closing date is 7th April 2013. (link)

Paper about TRY highly cited
Kattge et al. (2011) "TRY - a global database of plant traits" is among the 3% most cited articles in Global Change Biology for 2012 (43 citations) (link)

Paper published
Verheijen, et al.: Impacts of trait variation through observed trait-climate relationships on performance of a representative Earth System model: a conceptual analysis. Biogeosciences Discussion. (link)

Linking vegetation and plant trait databases
12th meeting on vegetation databases. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Leipzig, 4th- 6th March 2013 (link)

Plant Traits at EGU 2013
European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 7-12 April 2013 Vienna, Austria; Abstract submission is now open. Session: Plant traits and biogeochemical cycles (link)

Paper published
Gallagher RV, MR Leishman: A global analysis of trait variation and evolution in climbing plants. Journal of Biogeography (link)

Paper published
de Vries et al.: Abiotic drivers and plant traits explain landscape-scale patterns in soil microbial communities. Ecology Letters (link)

Paper published
Goll et al.: Nutrient limitation reduces land carbon uptake in simulations with a model of combined carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling. Biogeosciences 9:3547–3569 (link)

Paper published
Kunstler et al.: Competitive interactions between forest trees are driven by species’ trait hierarchy, not phylogenetic or functional similarity: implications for forest community assembly. Ecology Letters (link)

Open Positions at iDiv
Application deadline Sept. 15
The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) invites applications for eight full professor positions (salary W3), five scientific positions, one position in adminstration. More scientific positions will be announced soon. (link)

Paper published
Bonan et al.: Reconciling leaf physiological traits and canopy flux data: Use of the TRY and FLUXNET databases in the Community Land Model version 4. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences 117, G02026 (link)

Paper published
He et al.: Relationships between net primary productivity and forest stand age in U.S. forests. Global Biochemical Cycles (link)

Open Positions at iDiv
The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) invites applications for eight full professor positions (salary W3), five scientific positions, one position in adminstration. More scientific positions will be announced soon. (link)

Paper published
Shan et al.: Gap Filling in the Plant Kingdom - Trait Prediction Using Hierarchical Probabilistic Matrix Factorization. Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning (link)

iDiv funded by DFG
The German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) will be based in Leipzig; Christian Wirth has been appointed director. 85 new scientific positions will be announced soon. (link)

Job opportunities
Two postdocs advertised at Macquarie U., Australia, to work with Ian Wright & Colin Prentice: Research Fellow in (1) Plant Functional Ecology and (2) Data Analysis and Modelling. (link)

New dataset published
A new dataset has been published and contributed to TRY: Akhmetzhanova et al.: A rediscovered treasure: mycorrhizal intensity database for 3000 vascular plant species across the former Soviet Union. Ecology (link)

Paper published
Goll et. al.: Nutrient limitation reduces land carbon uptake in simulations with a model of combined carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling. Biogeosciences Discussion (link)

Paper published
highlighted in Nature
Knapp et. al.: Phylogenetic and functional characteristics of household yard floras and their changes along an urbanization gradient, Ecology (link)

Free downloads from TRY website
The new website allows free downloads. Currently, TRY site climate and soil information and the categorical traits for the species used in TRY are available. (link)

Kattge et al 2011 chosen by Faculty of 1000
Kirk Moloney from Iowa State University evaluated it for this post-publication peer review list (link)

TRY Data Explorer
Now including maps and downloads (link)

TRY highlighted in FLUXNET newsletter
October 2011 Vol 4 No 2 TRY – a global database of plant traits – meets FLUXNET (link)

Paper published
Kattge et al.: TRY - a global database of plant traits, Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02451.x (link)

TRY in the media
A new global database of plant traits – TRY, Resilience Science (link)

Paper published
Kattge et al.: A generic structure for plant trait databases, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, doi: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00067.x (link)