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Crowdsourced biodiversity monitoring fills gaps in global plant trait mapping

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Abstract

Plant functional traits are fundamental to ecosystem dynamics and Earth system processes, but their global characterization is limited by available field surveys and trait measurements. Recent expansions in biodiversity data aggregation—including vegetation surveys, citizen science observations, and trait measurements—offer new opportunities to overcome these constraints. Here we demonstrate that combining these diverse data sources with high-resolution Earth observation data enables accurate modeling of key plant traits at up to 1 km2 resolution. Our approach achieves correlations up to 0.63 (15 of 31 traits exceeding 0.50) and improved spatial transferability, effectively bridging gaps in under-sampled regions. By capturing a broad range of traits with high spatial coverage, these maps can enhance understanding of plant community properties and ecosystem functioning, while serving as tools for modeling global biogeochemical processes and informing conservation efforts. Our framework highlights the power of crowdsourced biodiversity data in addressing longstanding extrapolation challenges in global plant trait modeling, with continued advancements in data collection and remote sensing poised to further refine trait-based understanding of the biosphere.

Data availability

The Earth observation data used in this study are publicly available through Google Earth Engine (https://earthengine.google.com) or the Google Earth Engine Community Catalog (https://gee-community-catalog.org/). GBIF species occurrence data are available via the dataset citation provided in the ref. 75. The TRY gap filled trait data used in this study are available under restricted access due to the data sharing policies of contributing datasets within TRY. Access can be requested through the TRY Plant Trait Database (https://www.try-db.org) following their standard data request procedure. The sPlot vegetation survey data used in this study are available under restricted access to protect the interests of data contributors. Access can be requested by contacting the sPlot consortium through the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) via G.D. or through the sPlot website (https://www.idiv.de/splot). After request processing, data are provided under a data use agreement. The global trait maps generated in this study have been deposited in Zenodo106. An interactive map viewer is available at https://global-traits.projects.earthengine.app/view/global-traits, and additional study resources can be found at https://planttraits.earth. Users of these maps should consult the coefficient of variation and area of applicability layers, as well as the model performance metrics provided in the raster metadata and Table S2, noting that performance varies across traits and biomes (Figs. 4b, 5c, S3 and Table S4). Source data underlying the figures are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18108765.

Code availability

The code used to process data, train models, and generate trait maps in this study is available at https://github.com/dluks/cit-sci-trait-maps and archived on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18269445.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the framework of BigPlantSens (Assessing the Synergies of Big Data and Deep Learning for the Remote Sensing of Plant Species; project no. 444524904) and PANOPS (Revealing Earth’s plant functional diversity with citizen science; project no. 504978936). D.L. and T.K. thank the European Space Agency for funding the “FORTRACK” project via the ESA CLIMATE SPACE: Climate-Biodiversity studies. The study is supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits (http://www.try-db.org) and the sPlot consortium (http://www.idiv.de/splot). The TRY initiative and database are hosted, developed, and maintained by J.K. and G. Boenisch (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany), currently supported by Future Earth/bioDISCOVERY and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv, DFG-FZT 118, 202548816). sPlot is a strategic project of iDiv and is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG-FZT 118, 202548816). F.M.S. gratefully acknowledges the support of the Italian Ministry of University and Research, under the Maria Levi Montalcini programme. S.W. was funded by the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Biodiversity, NFDI4Biodiversity, a DFG project, project no. 442032008 and by the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (ESA-CCI) Tipping Elements SIRENE project (contract no. 4000146954/24/I-LR). CFD acknowledges funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through CRC 1537 Ecosense and EXC 3127 Future Forests. F.G.’s surveying efforts were funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships (TMPFP2_217531). F.R. acknowledges the support of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for postdoctoral fellowships (N∘88887.974741/2024-00). J.A., J. Dolezal, and K. Korznikov were supported by the research grant 25-15727S of the Czech Science Foundation and long-term research development project No. RVO 67985939 of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences. This work would not have been possible without the contributions of ecologists and vegetation surveyors who diligently sampled field plots, curated datasets, and shared them through accessible databases. We also acknowledge the vital role of citizen scientists engaged in platforms such as iNaturalist and Pl@ntNet, whose time, observations, and local knowledge have been crucial in assembling high-quality, research-ready data.

Funding

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Sensor-based Geoinformatics (geosense), University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Daniel Lusk, Kilian Gerberding & Teja Kattenborn

  2. Remote Sensing Centre for Earth System Research, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Sophie Wolf & Daria Svidzinska

  3. Department of Biometry and Environmental System Analysis, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Carsten F. Dormann

  4. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Jens Kattge, Helge Bruelheide & Gabriella Damasceno

  5. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    Jens Kattge

  6. Institute of Biology/Geobotany and Botanical Garden, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Helge Bruelheide & Gabriella Damasceno

  7. BIOME Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BiGeA), Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Francesco Maria Sabatini, Georg J. A. Hähn & Riccardo Testolin

  8. Image Signal Processing Group, Image Processing Laboratory (IPL), University of Valencia, Paterna, Spain

    Álvaro Moreno Martínez

  9. CEFE, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Cyrille Violle

  10. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Daniel Hending

  11. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas, CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina

    Solana Tabeni

  12. Department of Forestry, Mizoram University, Aizawl, India

    Shyam Phartyal

  13. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Fernando Gonçalves

  14. Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Holger Kreft

  15. Palmengarten der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Marco Schmidt

  16. College of Grassland Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China

    Han Chen

  17. Institute for Global Change Biology, and School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Han Chen

  18. Biology Education, Dokuz Eylül University, Buca, Izmir, Turkey

    Behlül Güler

  19. Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Trebon, Czechia

    Jiri Dolezal, Dinesh Thakur, Jan Altman & Kirill Korznikov

  20. Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czechia

    Jiri Dolezal

  21. Institute of Botany, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

    Remigiusz Pielech

  22. Instituto de Ecología y Ciencias Ambientales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Anaclara Guido

  23. Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Ciara Dwyer

  24. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Francesca Napoleone

  25. Centre for Research and Conservation, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Jacob Willie

  26. Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Blumenau, Brazil

    André Luís Gasper

  27. Departamento de Biología (Botánica), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel J. Macía

  28. Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel J. Macía

  29. Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia

    Milan Chytry

  30. UMR CNRS 7058 “Ecologie et Dynamique des Systèmes Anthropisés” (EDYSAN), Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France

    Jonathan Lenoir

  31. Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Wädenswil, Switzerland

    Jürgen Dengler

  32. Institute of Agroecology and Plant Production, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław, Poland

    Sebastian Świerszcz

  33. Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czechia

    Jan Altman

  34. Iluka Chair in Vegetation Science and Biogeography, Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Ladislav Mucina

  35. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Ladislav Mucina

  36. Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Ashish N. Nerlekar

  37. Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Ashish N. Nerlekar

  38. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea

    Kaoru Kakinuma

  39. ICFRE- Himalayan Forest Research Institute, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India

    Pravin Rawat

  40. Faculty of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Zvjezdana Stančić

  41. Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Environmental Sciences Department, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Mohamed Z. Hatim

  42. Plant Ecology Laboratory (LABEV), UNEMAT, Nova Xavantina, MT, Brazil

    Flávio Rodrigues

  43. Faculty of Resource Management, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Göttingen, Germany

    Jürgen Homeier

  44. Departamento de Botânica, SCB, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil

    Marcia C. M. Marques

  45. Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Lincoln, New Zealand

    James K. McCarthy

  46. Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    M. A. El-Sheikh

Authors

  1. Daniel Lusk
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  2. Sophie Wolf
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  3. Daria Svidzinska
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  4. Carsten F. Dormann
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  5. Jens Kattge
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  6. Helge Bruelheide
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  7. Francesco Maria Sabatini
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  8. Gabriella Damasceno
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  9. Álvaro Moreno Martínez
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  10. Cyrille Violle
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  11. Daniel Hending
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  12. Georg J. A. Hähn
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  13. Solana Tabeni
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  14. Shyam Phartyal
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  15. Fernando Gonçalves
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  16. Holger Kreft
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  17. Marco Schmidt
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  18. Han Chen
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  19. Behlül Güler
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  20. Jiri Dolezal
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  21. Remigiusz Pielech
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  22. Anaclara Guido
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  23. Ciara Dwyer
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  24. Francesca Napoleone
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  25. Jacob Willie
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  26. André Luís Gasper
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  27. Manuel J. Macía
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  28. Milan Chytry
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  29. Jonathan Lenoir
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  30. Dinesh Thakur
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  31. Jürgen Dengler
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  32. Sebastian Świerszcz
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  33. Jan Altman
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  34. Ladislav Mucina
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  35. Ashish N. Nerlekar
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  36. Kaoru Kakinuma
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  37. Pravin Rawat
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  38. Zvjezdana Stančić
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  39. Riccardo Testolin
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  40. Mohamed Z. Hatim
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  41. Flávio Rodrigues
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  42. Jürgen Homeier
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  43. Marcia C. M. Marques
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  44. James K. McCarthy
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  45. M. A. El-Sheikh
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  46. Kirill Korznikov
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  47. Kilian Gerberding
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  48. Teja Kattenborn
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Contributions

D.L. and T.K. conceived the study. D.L. designed the methodology and led the analysis. S.W., D.S., and K.G. contributed to the development of analytical tools and statistical modeling. Data collection and processing were carried out by C.V., D.H., G.J.A.H., S.T., S.P., F.G., H.K., M.S., H.C., B.G., J. Dolezal, R.P., A.G., C.D., F.N., J.W., A.L.G., M.J.M., M.C., J.L., D.T., J. Dengler, S.Ś., J.A., L.M., A.N.N., K. Kakinuma, P.R., Z.S., R.T., M.Z.H., F.R., J.H., M.C.M.M., J.K.M., M.A.E., and K. Korznikov, who also provided critical feedback on data quality and interpretation. Manuscript writing was led by D.L., with substantial contributions from T.K., S.W., D.S., C.F.D., J.K., H.B., F.M.S., G.D., and A.M.M., and all authors reviewed and edited the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to
Daniel Lusk.

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Lusk, D., Wolf, S., Svidzinska, D. et al. Crowdsourced biodiversity monitoring fills gaps in global plant trait mapping.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68996-y

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