Andreas Prinzing

TL;DR: TRY as discussed by the authors is a global database of plant traits, including morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs, which can be used for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography.

TL;DR: The extent of the trait data compiled in TRY is evaluated and emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness are analyzed to conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements.

TL;DR: N niche conservatism among extant plant species may reflect the opportunities of their ancestors during their diversification, and could be correlated with the palaeoenvironmental conditions during the radiation of the phylogenetic lineages.

TL;DR: It is suggested that phylogenetic patterns may be little useful as proxy of community assembly, but can prove useful to identify and test novel hypotheses on how local coexistence may control macroevolution of the habitat lineage-pool, for example through competition among close relatives triggering displacement and diversification of characters.

TL;DR: It is suggested that despite the strong progress that has been made, a consistent unified framework is still missing to link local ecological dynamics to macroevolution, and this is a necessary step in order to interpret observed phylogenetic patterns in a wider ecological context.