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Abstract

One central assumption of trait screening approaches in comparative plant ecology, i.e. simultaneous measurement of traits on a large number of species or populations, is that the species level captures a major part of trait variation. The current development of large databases has led to a new screening approach that relies on the extraction of trait values from databases, rather than on measurement of traits in the field. We tested this assumption with the following questions: (1) is the magnitude of intra-specific variability of co-occurring species lower than inter-specific variability for a given trait, in comparisons at different spatial scales; (2) is species hierarchy based on trait values conserved across different spatial scales and data sets (stable species hierarchy hypothesis); and (3) when we compare different traits, what is the more stable trait that is conserved across different spatial scales and data sets?