Shrubification (i.e., increasing shrub abundance) and thermophilisation (i.e., increasing dominance of warmth-demanding species) are among the most widely documented imprints of climate change on mountain ecosystems. Still, it remains insufficiently quantified how increasing shrub cover alters the near-ground microclimate and snow duration, and in turn, how this interacts with the climate-change responses of alpine plant communities. To this end, we leveraged 21 years of vegetation resampling data and soil temperature time-series from 576 permanent plots positioned on European mountaintops and covering the treeline ecotone up to the middle alpine belt. Snow duration decreased faster in plots with stronger macroclimate warming, which in turn led to a rise in minimum soil temperatures of 0.28°C per decade across all plots. Overall thermophilisation rates were higher in sheltered habitats with snow accumulation, while habitats with higher shrub cover showed faster loss of cold-adapted species. Further research is needed to disentangle the joint effects of shrubs, snow and microclimates, yielding more accurate projections of climate-induced plant community reshuffling in alpine habitats.

Climate warming is shifting biological communities, with warmth-demanding species being favoured at the expense of cold-adapted species in a process referred to as thermophilization1-4. Because biodiversity responses often lag behind climate warming, climatic debts are accumulating in many ecosystems across the world5-7. Although we might expect that thermophilization and climatic debts will vary among habitats, standardized quantification across ecosystems is lacking. Here we analysed multidecadal data from 6,067 resurveyed vegetation plots over 12-78 years in forests, grasslands and on alpine summits across Europe. We demonstrate that forest understory and grassland plant communities experienced positive thermophilization, although not significantly different from zero. By contrast, alpine summit vegetation showed much stronger (up to five times) and significant thermophilization. Thermophilization was driven largely by increases in warmth-demanding species in grasslands, by declines in cold-adapted species on alpine summits and by both processes in forests. Significant climatic debts have accumulated in forests and alpine summits, but less so in grasslands, with debts positively correlated with macroclimate temperature changes. Our findings uncover divergent thermophilization trajectories and increasing climatic debts across ecosystems. Moreover, we highlight the mechanisms that enable some communities to track climate change more closely than others and provide a basis for projecting future shifts in plant communities under accelerating climate warming.

Plant litter decomposition governs how much carbon soils store and emit, yet the microbial traits that shape ecosystem-scale decay remain unresolved. Metagenomes can quantify genes encoding plant cell-wall-degrading enzymes, but it is unclear whether ecosystem differences in decay reflect distinct enzymatic repertoires, and whether these data improve prediction beyond climate and soil properties. We paired standardized green and rooibos tea-bag decomposition assays across 3–24 months with 295 soil metagenomes from 264 global sites. Using 196 European plots for primary inference, we built a stage-resolved catalogue of 17.6 million carbohydrate-active enzyme (CAZyme) genes. Forest microbiomes decomposed tea faster than grasslands, but this was not explained by greater CAZyme family richness. Instead, ecosystems differed in CAZyme abundance, subfamily and protein-sequence variation, and allocation across biochemical stages of plant cell-wall decay, with evidence of ecosystem-specific selection. CAZyme profiles added explanatory power for 24-month mass loss and improved within-ecosystem prediction but generalized poorly across ecosystems and continents. By showing that ecosystem differences in decomposition arise from the stage-specific distribution of shared enzymatic functions rather than their presence alone, this work shifts microbial trait inference beyond gene inventories and provides a mechanistic genomic framework for carbon-cycle modelling within defined environmental limits.

Shrubs are expanding across the cold ecosystems of our planet with potentially profound consequences for their biodiversity and functioning. However, evidence is still strongly biased towards the Arctic tundra, while a large-scale assessment of shrub expansion in alpine areas above the elevational treeline is missing so far. Here we quantified shrub cover changes over the past two decades in 576 permanent plots of 1 m2 spread across the alpine vegetation belt of Europe's major mountain chains. Total shrub cover clearly increased in the plots with an average rate of about 2.6% per m2 per decade (95% CI = 1.9%-3.4%), and this expansion was more pronounced for evergreen (2.0% per m2 per decade, CI = 1.3%-2.7%) than for deciduous species (1.7% per m2 per decade, CI = 0.9%-2.4%). The magnitude of individual species' cover shifts was positively associated with their plant height, but negatively with their leaf nitrogen content and light affinity. In sum, we show that shrub expansion is a widespread phenomenon also in the alpine zone of European mountains, with potentially far-reaching consequences for alpine plant dynamics, soil microclimates, snow patterns, carbon cycling, food chains and livelihoods.

Growing evidence has shown that, apart from local environmental factors, changes in landscape-level factors by accelerated land-use change can also shape soil pathogenic fungal diversity. However, the global representativeness of such patterns remains unclear. Here, we assess how pathogenic fungal diversity in 511 soil samples worldwide responds to landscape factors, including landscape complexity index based on eight landscape metrics and quantity of different land cover types across six spatial scales (i.e., surrounding landscape, 250 m to 10,000 m radii from the sampling coordinate). We find that while soil variables explain over half of the variance, pathogenic fungal alpha diversity increases with landscape complexity and crop cover proportion, but decreases with grass and tree cover proportion, together explaining 23.4% of the total variance. Landscape factors have weaker impacts on beta diversity, explaining 13.0% of the variance. Across spatial scales, grassland ecosystems exhibit increasingly stronger responses to landscape variables compared to forest ecosystems. Landscape factors have a higher relative contribution to root-associated fungi than leaf/fruit/seed-associated fungi. Our results emphasize the importance of local factors and the complementary role of landscape patterns in shaping global soil pathogenic fungal distributions, highlighting scale-dependent effects across ecosystems and fungal functional groups.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is crucial for ecosystem function and carbon storage, especially in mountain regions where cooler temperatures limit microbial activity, leading to higher SOC stocks compared to lowlands. However, the available data are insufficient to fully understand the distribution of SOC properties along elevation and snow cover duration gradients. Given that climate change models predict a reduction in snow cover duration, it is essential to better characterize these properties at a finer, mesotopographic scale (e.g., ridges and slopes), corresponding to the distribution of mountain plant communities. This study investigates the impact of microclimate on SOC content and stability in European mountain grasslands. We focused on two types of grasslands on acidic soils to maintain homogeneity in key parameters such as soil properties and plant communities. These grasslands, located across temperate European mountain ranges (Alps, Pyrenees, Vosges, Balkans, Carpathians, Black Forest, Bohemian Forest, and Sudetes), span a gradient of snow cover duration, ranging from frost-exposed ridges dominated by Carex curvula, to intermediate grasslands, without frost, dominated by Nardus stricta. SOC content and stability were assessed using Rock-Eval (R) thermal analysis across all sites. The results indicate that microclimate significantly influences SOC properties. Cooler temperatures, driven by elevation and reduced snow cover duration, were associated with increased SOC content but decreased stability. On windy ridges, extended growing seasons combined with intense winter freezing led to higher SOC lability, as freezing slows down mineralization processes. In contrast, intermediate grasslands, with longer growing seasons, showed enhanced SOC stability due to higher decomposition activity. These findings provide valuable insights into how SOC properties may evolve under climate change, particularly in relation to rising temperatures and shifting snow cover dynamics.

Over recent decades, cold-climate ecosystems have exhibited a pronounced increase in vegetation greenness, and shrub encroachment is a major ecological process underlying these changes. Our knowledge of these dynamics remains limited in the temperate mountains of Eastern Europe, which have experienced significant land-use shifts, especially following the collapse of the communist regime. It is noteworthy that the contribution of shrubs has not been evaluated, partly due to the difficulty of providing high-resolution mapping of shrublands. In this study, we integrated four decades of Landsat-derived NDVI time series with a customized land cover classification based on Sentinel-2 imagery to investigate greenness dynamics above 1500 m elevation in the Carpathian Mountains. The classification targeted key shrubland types using spectral indices tailored to seasonal pigment variations. We also conducted diachronic visual analysis of aerial photographs, including Cold War-era satellite images, to evaluate long-term vegetation changes. We found significant positive greenness trends in 44% of the study area, with the highest magnitude located at mid-elevations (1800–2300 m) and on north-facing slopes. High-resolution land cover mapping revealed that Ericaceous and Juniperus -dominated shrublands were the strongest contributors to greening. Visual interpretation of historical imagery confirmed widespread woody encroachment in these areas. We suggest that the decline of traditional land-use, particularly extensive grazing practices, is a key driver of these ecological shifts, promoting the resurgence of previously more widespread subalpine shrublands. Our findings highlight the importance of integrating high-resolution remote sensing observations and diachronic analysis of aerial photographs to disentangle the complexity of vegetation greening in high-elevation ecosystems.

Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope - a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions. Results: ReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover-abundance classes such as variants of the Braun-Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020. Conclusions: ReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine-scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well-established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurvey:Europe data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS:Studying trait variability and restricted gene flow between populations of species can reveal species dynamics. Peripheral populations commonly exhibit lower genetic diversity and trait variability due to isolation and ecological marginality, unlike central populations experiencing gene flow and optimal conditions. This study focused on Carex curvula, the dominant species in alpine acidic meadows of European mountain regions. The species is sparser in dry areas such as the Pyrenees and Balkans, compared to the Central-Eastern Alps and Carpathians. We hypothesized that distinct population groups could be identified based on their mean functional trait values and their correlation with the environment; we predicted that ecologically marginal populations would have stronger trait correlations, lower within-population trait variability (intraspecific trait variability, ITV) and lower genetic diversity than populations of optimal habitats. METHODS:Sampling was conducted in 34 populations that spanned the entire distribution range of C. curvula. We used hierarchical clustering to identify emergent functional groups of populations, defined by combinations of multiple traits associated with nutrient economy and drought tolerance (e.g. specific leaf area, anatomy). We contrasted the geographical distribution of these groups in relation to environment and genetic structure. We compared pairwise trait relationships, within-population trait variation (ITV) and neutral genetic diversity between groups. KEY RESULTS:Our study identified emergent functional groups of populations. Those in the southernmost ranges, specifically the Pyrenees and Balkan region, showed drought-tolerant trait syndromes and correlated with indicators of limited water availability. While we noted a decline in population genetic diversity, we did not observe any significant changes in ITV in ecologically marginal (peripheral) populations. CONCLUSIONS:Our research exemplifies the relationship between ecological marginality and geographical peripherality, which in this case study is linked to genetic depauperation but not to reduced ITV. Understanding these relationships is crucial for understanding the biogeographical factors shaping trait variation.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1‐km 2 resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1‐km 2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse‐grained air temperature estimates from ERA5‐Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome‐specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near‐surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil‐related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.

Romania hosts a relatively high species diversity, including 3,829 vascular and 979 non-vascular spontaneous plant taxa. Multiple national red lists exist, with the number of taxa assessed as threatened varying greatly between them, from 548 to 1,438, and with number of taxa assigned to a given threat category also varying between the different sources. A composite list including all taxa mentioned in at least one of the selected red listings from Romania is required in order to compensate for this lack of consensus and to assess their ex situ conservation status. In this study, we synthesized data from the national red lists and counted 1,220 spontaneous vascular plant species and 201 subspecies, of which 77 are endemic and 76 subendemic for Romania. In addition, 18 non-red-listed endemics and 14 subendemics have been added, bringing the total to 1,453 threatened and (sub)endemic plant taxa, representing almost 38% of the total native vascular flora of Romania. Despite the large network of protected areas in Romania, many taxa are still being threatened with extinction in the region mainly due to anthropogenic pressure. Several ex situ conservation measures have been employed to assure a more substantial buffer against plant extinction in the wild, supported by thorough and adequate conservation strategies and multiple means to reintroduce taxa back to their natural habitats. Consequently, our second aim was to evaluate the ex situ conservation status of these threatened and (sub)endemic plants from Romania, focussing on both conventional methods (cultivation in botanic gardens, seed banking) and biotechnological approaches (in vitro tissue culture, medium-term storage and cryostorage). Of the 1,453 taxa included in our list, 642 (44.2%) are conserved by ex situ approaches. Of these, 524 are harboured in the most important botanic gardens throughout Romania, while 156 are currently held in long-term seed banks locally or in the Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew (UK). Conversely, only 64 taxa from the list are preserved at the national level through in vitro cultures, and cryopreservation protocols have been developed for only 8 taxa. Overall, more than half of the threatened and (sub)endemic vascular flora from Romania remains unprotected outside the classical in situ conservation measures. For red-listed bryophytes, only 0.6% are preserved in national ex situ collections. Moreover, some aspects related to population genetic studies and the genetic stability of ex situ conserved plants are also briefly discussed, as essential prerequisites for applied biodiversity conservation programs. Finally, considering the distribution range of targeted taxa, we included a synthesis of biotechnological approaches at both national and international level. Our study presents not only a first assessment of the ex situ conservation status of national red listed flora, but also, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive and updated overview of the rare, threatened and (sub)endemic taxa from Romania. This evaluation will provide a supporting tool for national decision- and policy-making actions for biodiversity conservation, using both in situ and ex situ approaches. We also highlight the need for an updated red list for the Romanian flora that accurately follows the IUCN assessment criteria and protocols.

Species turnover is ubiquitous. However, it remains unknown whether certain types of species are consistently gained or lost across different habitats. Here, we analysed the trajectories of 1827 plant species over time intervals of up to 78 years at 141 sites across mountain summits, forests, and lowland grasslands in Europe. We found, albeit with relatively small effect sizes, displacements of smaller- by larger-ranged species across habitats. Communities shifted in parallel towards more nutrient-demanding species, with species from nutrient-rich habitats having larger ranges. Because these species are typically strong competitors, declines of smaller-ranged species could reflect not only abiotic drivers of global change, but also biotic pressure from increased competition. The ubiquitous component of turnover based on species range size we found here may partially reconcile findings of no net loss in local diversity with global species loss, and link community-scale turnover to macroecological processes such as biotic homogenisation.

Aim The number of naturalized (i.e. established) alien species has increased rapidly over recent centuries. Given the differences in environmental tolerances among species, little is known about what factors determine the extent to which the observed size of the naturalized range of a species and hence the extent to which the observed richness of naturalized species of a region approach their full potential. Here, we asked which region- and species-specific characteristics explain differences between observed and expected naturalizations. Location Global. Time period Present. Major taxa studied Vascular plants. Methods We determined the observed naturalized distribution outside Europe for 1,485 species endemic to Europe using the Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database and their expected distributions outside Europe using species distribution models. First, we investigated which of seven socio-economic factors related to introduction pathways, anthropogenic pressures and inventory effort best explained the differences between observed and expected naturalized European floras. Second, we examined whether distributional features, economic use and functional traits explain the extent to which species have filled their expected ranges outside Europe. Results In terms of suitable area, more than 95% of expected naturalizations of European plants were not yet observed. Species were naturalized in only 4.2% of their suitable regions outside of Europe (range filling) and in 0.4% of their unsuitable regions (range expansion). Anthropogenic habitat disturbance primarily explained the difference between observed and expected naturalized European floras, as did the number of treaties relevant to invasive species. Species of ornamental and economic value and with large specific leaf area performed better at filling and expanding beyond their expected range. Main conclusions The naturalization of alien plant species is explained by climate matching but also by the regional level of human development, the introduction pressure associated with the ornamental and economic values of the species and their adaptation to disturbed environments.

Current analyses and predictions of spatially explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long-term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate-forcing factors that operate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions are overlooked. This is particularly important in relation to effects of observation height (e.g. vegetation, snow and soil characteristics) and in habitats varying in their exposure to radiation, moisture and wind (e.g. topography, radiative forcing or cold-air pooling). Since organisms living close to the ground relate more strongly to these microclimatic conditions than to free-air temperatures, microclimatic ground and near-surface data are needed to provide realistic forecasts of the fate of such organisms under anthropogenic climate change, as well as of the functioning of the ecosystems they live in. To fill this critical gap, we highlight a call for temperature time series submissions to SoilTemp, a geospatial database initiative compiling soil and near-surface temperature data from all over the world. Currently, this database contains time series from 7,538 temperature sensors from 51 countries across all key biomes. The database will pave the way toward an improved global understanding of microclimate and bridge the gap between the available climate data and the climate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions relevant to most organisms and ecosystem processes.

Intraspecific trait variability (ITV) is an important component of functional ecology studies. While functional biogeography requires us to understand broad-scale patterns of trait distribution, ITV remains inadequately studied. Due to isolation of ranges, habitat fragmentation and sharp topoclimatic gradients over short distances, temperate mountains offer opportunities to study the ITV in widespread species. In this study, we explored ITV in geographically separated populations of matgrass (Nardus stricta), a clonal dominant plant species of mountain pastures. We measured plant height and leaf traits in 55 populations distributed across six European mountain ranges (from the Pyrenees to the Carpathians) to examine the structure of ITV. We hypothesised that the leaf economics spectrum (LES) and plant size exhibit a strong convergence across a prevailing gradient of growing season length (GSL). We then partitioned the ITV into between ranges, between populations nested in ranges and between individuals nested in populations, and examined the role of climate and local variables on the spatial variation and covariation of traits. Traits showed large ITV and higher between- than within-population variability. Leaf traits displayed a high dependency on height reflecting the growing phase climate and other local factors, while range identity alone (differentiation between ranges) explained a low to moderate amount of the variability in the traits. The strength of coordination between several of the LES traits was higher under shorter GSL due to late snowmelt, suggesting higher phenotypic integration. In the context of functional biogeography of mountain ecosystems, allometric effects and growing phase climate are both key to understanding ITV. We discuss the implications of these findings as they relate to future comparative studies of ITV in seasonal environments.

Aims Vegetation‐plot records provide information on the presence and cover or abundance of plants co‐occurring in the same community. Vegetation‐plot data are spread across research groups, environmental agencies and biodiversity research centers and, thus, are rarely accessible at continental or global scales. Here we present the sPlot database, which collates vegetation plots worldwide to allow for the exploration of global patterns in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity at the plant community level. Results sPlot version 2.1 contains records from 1,121,244 vegetation plots, which comprise 23,586,216 records of plant species and their relative cover or abundance in plots collected worldwide between 1885 and 2015. We complemented the information for each plot by retrieving climate and soil conditions and the biogeographic context (e.g., biomes) from external sources, and by calculating community‐weighted means and variances of traits using gap‐filled data from the global plant trait database TRY. Moreover, we created a phylogenetic tree for 50,167 out of the 54,519 species identified in the plots. We present the first maps of global patterns of community richness and community‐weighted means of key traits. Conclusions The availability of vegetation plot data in sPlot offers new avenues for vegetation analysis at the global scale.

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litter and methodologies, adding major uncertainty to syntheses, comparisons and meta-analyses across different experiments and sites. In the TeaComposition initiative, the potential litter decomposition is investigated by using standardized substrates (Rooibos and Green tea) for comparison of litter mass loss at 336 sites (ranging from -9 to +26 degrees C MAT and from 60 to 3113 mm MAP) across different ecosystems. In this study we tested the effect of climate (temperature and moisture), litter type and land-use on early stage decomposition (3 months) across nine biomes. We show that litter quality was the predominant controlling factor in early stage litter decomposition, which explained about 65% of the variability in litter decomposition at a global scale. The effect of climate, on the other hand, was not litter specific and explained <0.5% of the variation for Green tea and 5% for Rooibos tea, and was of significance only under unfavorable decomposition conditions (i.e. xeric versus mesic environments). When the data were aggregated at the biome scale, climate played a significant role on decomposition of both litter types (explaining 64% of the variation for Green tea and 72% for Rooibos tea). No significant effect of land-use on early stage litter decomposition was noted within the temperate biome. Our results indicate that multiple drivers are affecting early stage litter mass loss with litter quality being dominant. In order to be able to quantify the relative importance of the different drivers over time, long-term studies combined with experimental trials are needed. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A central hypothesis of ecology states that regional diversity influences local diversity through species-pool effects. Species pools are supposedly shaped by large-scale factors and then filtered into ecological communities, but understanding these processes requires the analysis of large datasets across several regions. Here, we use a framework of community assembly at a continental scale to test the relative influence of historical and environmental drivers, in combination with regional or local species pools, on community species richness and community completeness. Using 42,173 vegetation plots sampled across European beech forests, we found that large-scale factors largely accounted for species pool sizes. At the regional scale, main predictors reflected historical contingencies related to post-glacial dispersal routes, whereas at the local scale, the influence of environmental filters was predominant. Proximity to Quaternary refugia and high precipitation were the main factors supporting community species richness, especially among beech forest specialist plants. Models for community completeness indicate the influence of large-scale factors, further suggesting community saturation as a result of dispersal limitation or biotic interactions. Our results empirically demonstrate how historical factors complement environmental gradients to provide a better understanding of biodiversity patterns across multiple regions.

This report describes the Romanian Grassland Database (RGD), registered under EU-RO-008 in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD). This collaborative initiative aims to collect all available vegetation-plot data (releves) of grasslands and other open habitats from the territory of Romania to provide them for science, nationally and internationally, e.g. via the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database "sPlot". The database mainly contains vegetation-plots from not only wet, mesic, dry, saline, alpine and rocky grasslands, but also other vegetation types like heathlands, mires, ruderal, segetal, aquatic and cryptogamdominated vegetation. Currently, 21,685 releves have mainly been digitised from literature sources (90%), while the remainder comes from individual unpublished sources (10%). We report on the background and history of the RGD, explain its "Data Property and Governance Rules" under which data are contributed and retrieved, and outline how the RGD can contribute to research in the fields of vegetation ecology, macroecology and conservation.