GIFT

GIFT provides an integrated database of regional plant checklists, species-level functional traits, taxonomic standardization resources, and a plant phylogeny to support analyses of global and regional plant diversity, trait distributions, phylogenetic relationships, and environmental associations.

Key Features:

• Comprehensive Database: GIFT version 3.0 comprises 5,169 regional plant checklists covering 3,400 regions, with data on 371,148 land plant species (354,848 with accepted species names) and species-level information for 109 functional traits.
• Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Integration: GIFT incorporates taxonomic name standardization resources and alignment with a newly developed plant phylogeny to support taxonomic and evolutionary analyses.
• Trait Aggregation Workflow: GIFT 3.0 includes a trait aggregation workflow for compiling and summarizing functional trait data at species and regional levels.
• Environmental Variables: GIFT 3.0 provides additional environmental variables linked to regions to contextualize species distributions and trait patterns.
• Data Retrieval: The gift_r R package provides functions to retrieve distributional, functional, phylogenetic, and environmental data from the GIFT database for analysis and reproducible citation.

Scientific Applications:

• Global and regional biodiversity assessment: Analyze regional-to-global plant diversity patterns using checklists and species counts.
• Biogeography and range analysis: Investigate biogeographical patterns and regional species composition across the mapped regions.
• Functional trait ecology: Study distributions of functional traits and their role in ecosystem functions and biogeographical patterns.
• Phylogenetic and evolutionary studies: Conduct phylogenetic analyses integrating the provided plant phylogeny and taxonomic standardization.
• Environmental correlation and macroecology: Examine relationships between species, traits, and environmental variables across regions.
• Reproducible data citation: Use versioned GIFT data to ensure reproducibility of ecological and biogeographical analyses.

Methodology:

Explicit methods include taxonomic name standardization, alignment with a newly developed plant phylogeny, a trait aggregation workflow, and data retrieval functions implemented in the gift_r R package.