Plant traits and associated ecological data from Afromontane grasslands of Maloti-Drakensberg, South Africa

The Afromontane region harbors ancient grasslands with high levels of endemism, now under threat from land-use change, biological invasions and encroachment, and climate warming. As part of an international Plant Functional Traits Course we collected comprehensive trait data in five sites along an elevation gradient from 2,000–2,800 m a.s.l. and in a climate warming experiment at 3,064 m a.s.l. in the Maloti-Drakensberg, South Africa. We sampled 24,405 aboveground and 94 root trait measurements from 171 vascular plant taxa paired with 11 other datasets reflecting vegetation and structure, leaf and ecosystem carbon and water fluxes, leaf hyperspectral reflectance, and microclimatic and environmental data. Our data provide the first recorded trait data for 47 vascular plant species and more than double the trait data coverage from the Maloti-Drakensberg (106% increase). This study offers insights into plant and ecosystem functioning, provides a baseline for assessing impacts of environmental change, builds local competence, and aligns with similar data from China, Svalbard, Peru, and Norway.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Scientific Data

• Publication date

  2025-11-12

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/s41597-025-06045-xPMID 41224796PMCID 12612199
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Plant traits and associated ecological data from global change experiments and climate gradients in Norway

  2025cited by this paper
• Plant trait and vegetation data along a 1314 m elevation gradient with fire history in Puna grasslands, Perú

  2024cited by this paper
• Imaging tree root systems using ground penetrating radar (GPR) data in Brazil

  2024cited by this paper
• Southern Africa's Great Escarpment as an amphitheater of climate‐driven diversification and a buffer against future climate change in bats

  2024influential reference
• Plant traits and associated data from a warming experiment, a seabird colony, and along elevation in Svalbard

  2023cited by this paper
• Fast Assimilation-Temperature Response: a FAsTeR method for measuring the temperature dependence of leaf-level photosynthesis.

  2023cited by this paper
• Africa's First Alpine and Transboundary Long-Term Socioecological Research Platform

  2023influential reference
• Editorial: Biodiversity across Afromontane environments

  2023cited by this paper
• The economic value of grassland ecosystem services: A global meta‐analysis

  2022cited by this paper
• Phosphorus

  2022influential reference
• How to improve scaling from traits to ecosystem processes.

  2022cited by this paper
• cpop: Detecting Changes in Piecewise-Linear Signals

  2022cited by this paper
• The role of plant functional groups mediating climate impacts on carbon and biodiversity of alpine grasslands

  2022cited by this paper
• Integrating remote sensing with ecology and evolution to advance biodiversity conservation

  2022cited by this paper
• Gas exchange analyzers exhibit large measurement error driven by internal thermal gradients.

  2022cited by this paper
• Disruption of cultural burning promotes shrub encroachment and unprecedented wildfires

  2022cited by this paper
• The targets R package: a dynamic Make-like function-oriented pipeline toolkit for reproducibility and high-performance computing

  2021cited by this paper
• The Alien Plants That Threaten South Africa’s Mountain Ecosystems

  2021cited by this paper
• Beyond the Tree-Line: The C3-C4 “Grass-Line” Can Track Global Change in the World’s Grassy Mountain Systems

  2021cited by this paper
• Scrutinising Multidimensional Challenges in the Maloti-Drakensberg (Lesotho/South Africa)

  2021cited by this paper
• A best-practice guide to predicting plant traits from leaf-level hyperspectral data using partial least squares regression.

  2021cited by this paper
• Dual reference method for high precision infrared measurement of leaf surface temperature under field conditions

  2021cited by this paper
• performance: An R Package for Assessment, Comparison and Testing of Statistical Models

  2021cited by this paper
• RhizoVision Explorer: open-source software for root image analysis and measurement standardization

  2021cited by this paper
• Grass functional trait responses to experimental warming and fire in Afromontane grasslands

  2021cited by this paper
• Impact of livestock grazing intensity on plant diversity of montane grassland in the northern Drakensberg, South Africa

  2021cited by this paper
• Accounting for land cover changes and degradation in the Katse and Mohale Dam catchments of the Lesotho highlands

  2021cited by this paper
• Low predictability of energy balance traits and leaf temperature metrics in desert, montane and alpine plant communities

  2020cited by this paper
• Open Science principles for accelerating trait-based science across the Tree of Life

  2020cited by this paper
• Next‐generation field courses: Integrating Open Science and online learning

  2020cited by this paper
• A starting guide to root ecology: strengthening ecological concepts and standardising root classification, sampling, processing and trait measurements

  2020cited by this paper
• Plant traits and vegetation data from climate warming experiments along an 1100 m elevation gradient in Gongga Mountains, China

  2020cited by this paper
• A Beginner's Guide to Conducting Reproducible Research

  2020cited by this paper
• Adding Value to a Field‐Based Course with a Science Communication Module on Local Perceptions of Climate Change

  2020cited by this paper
• RootPainter: deep learning segmentation of biological images with corrective annotation

  2020cited by this paper
• Afro-Alpine Plant Diversity in the Tropical Mountains of Africa

  2019cited by this paper
• Temperature Changes in the Maloti-Drakensberg Region: An Analysis of Trends for the 1960–2016 Period

  2019cited by this paper
• Welcome to the Tidyverse

  2019cited by this paper
• TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access.

  2019cited by this paper
• The Drakensberg Mountain Centre: A necessary revision of southern Africa's high-elevation centre of plant endemism

  2019cited by this paper
• The handbook for standardized field and laboratory measurements in terrestrial climate change experiments and observational studies (ClimEx)

  2019cited by this paper
• ThermStats: An R package for quantifying surface thermal heterogeneity in assessments of microclimates

  2019cited by this paper
• Grasslands-more important for ecosystem services than you might think

  2019cited by this paper
• Climate at ecologically relevant scales: A new temperature and soil moisture logger for long-term microclimate measurement

  2019cited by this paper
• Influence of mountain geomorphology on alpine ecosystems in the Drakensberg Alpine Centre, Southern Africa

  2018cited by this paper
• Biological and geophysical feedbacks with fire in the Earth system

  2018cited by this paper
• Range contraction to a higher elevation: the likely future of the montane vegetation in South Africa and Lesotho

  2018cited by this paper
• Intraspecific Trait Variation and Phenotypic Plasticity Mediate Alpine Plant Species Response to Climate Change

  2018cited by this paper
• R package sarima: Simulation and Prediction with Seasonal ARIMA Models

  2017cited by this paper
• Small fire refugia in the grassy matrix and the persistence of Afrotemperate forest in the Drakensberg mountains

  2017cited by this paper
• Revisiting the Holy Grail: using plant functional traits to understand ecological processes

  2017cited by this paper
• Tools to Make Developing R Packages Easier

  2016cited by this paper
• The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship

  2016cited by this paper
• Visualization of a Correlation Matrix using 'ggplot2'

  2016cited by this paper
• Streamlined Plot Theme and Plot Annotations for 'ggplot2'

  2015cited by this paper
• Simple, Consistent Wrappers for Common String Operations

  2015cited by this paper
• The Tao of open science for ecology

  2015cited by this paper
• A global meta-analysis of the relative extent of intraspecific trait variation in plant communities.

  2015cited by this paper
• Redefining fine roots improves understanding of below-ground contributions to terrestrial biosphere processes.

  2015cited by this paper
• The global spectrum of plant form and function

  2015cited by this paper
• Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4

  2014cited by this paper
• New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide

  2013cited by this paper
• Resource-use strategies of native and invasive plants in Eastern North American forests.

  2013cited by this paper
• On improving the communication between models and data.

  2013cited by this paper
• Detection frequency of Pinus thunbergii roots by ground-penetrating radar is related to root biomass

  2012cited by this paper
• Guide to Grasses of Southern Africa

  2012cited by this paper
• NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis

  2012cited by this paper
• Dates and Times Made Easy with lubridate

  2011cited by this paper
• Beyond the forest edge: Ecology, diversity and conservation of the grassy biomes

  2010cited by this paper
• ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis

  2010cited by this paper
• Safeguarding Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Little Karoo, South Africa

  2010cited by this paper
• Contemporary spatio-temporal patterns of snow cover over the Drakensberg

  2010cited by this paper
• Spatial congruence between biodiversity and ecosystem services in South Africa

  2009cited by this paper
• Rainfall trends in the KwaZulu‐Natal Drakensberg region of South Africa during the twentieth century

  2009cited by this paper
• Rainfall and temperature attributes on the lesotho–drakensberg escarpment edge, southern africa

  2008influential reference
• Reshaping Data with the reshape Package

  2007cited by this paper
• The vegetation of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.

  2006cited by this paper
• Net ecosystem CO2 exchange in Mojave Desert shrublands during the eighth year of exposure to elevated CO2

  2005cited by this paper
• Predicting changes in community composition and ecosystem functioning from plant traits: revisiting the Holy Grail

  2002cited by this paper
• Equations for potential annual direct incident radiation and heat load

  2002cited by this paper
• The effect of experimental ecosystem warming on CO2 fluxes in a montane meadow

  1999cited by this paper
• Tundra plants and climate change: the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX)

  1997cited by this paper
• Determination of carbon and nitrogen in samples of various soils by the dry combustion

  1997influential reference
• The Vegetation of Africa

  1984cited by this paper
• A Model for C3 Leaves Describing the Dependence of Net Photosynthesis on Irradiance

  1980cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.