Revising the global biogeography of annual and perennial plants.

ABSTRACT: There are two main life cycles in plants-annual and perennial^1,2. These life cycles are associated with different traits that determine ecosystem function^3,4. Although life cycles are textbook examples of plant adaptation to different environments, we lack comprehensive knowledge regarding their global distributional patterns. Here we assembled an extensive database of plant life cycle assignments of 235,000 plant species coupled with millions of georeferenced datapoints to map the worldwide biogeography of these plant species. We found that annual plants are half as common as initially thought^5-8, accounting for only 6% of plant species. Our analyses indicate that annuals are favoured in hot and dry regions. However, a more accurate model shows that the pr

SUBMITTER: Poppenwimer T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10830411 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature