Global patterns in plant height

Summary 1. Plant height is a central part of plant ecological strategy. It is strongly correlated with life span, seed mass and time to maturity, and is a major determinant of a species’ ability to compete for light. Plant height is also related to critical ecosystem variables such as animal diversity and carbon storage capacity. However, remarkably little is known about global patterns in plant height. Here, we use maximum height data for 7084 plant Species × Site combinations to provide the first global, cross‐species quantification of the latitudinal gradient in plant height. 2. The mean maximum height of species growing within 15° of the equator (7.8 m) was 29 times greater than the height of species…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• NE
  National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
• VU
  Victoria University of Wellington