A wide range of abiotic habitat factors and genetic diversity facilitate expansion of Trapa natans within its native range.

Climate change and intense human activity are exacerbating changes in species' ranges. While the rapid spread of invasive alien species is well documented worldwide, the phenomenon of the spread of native species is poorly understood. To explain the problem of rapidly spreading species in the changing world, it is necessary to understand their ecology, genetic diversity and habitat limitation.

Climate regulation processes are linked to the functional composition of plant communities in European forests, shrublands, and grasslands.

Terrestrial ecosystems affect climate by reflecting solar irradiation, evaporative cooling, and carbon sequestration. Yet very little is known about how plant traits affect climate regulation processes (CRPs) in different habitat types. Here, we used linear and random forest models to relate the community-weighted mean and variance values of 19 plant traits (summarized into eight trait axes) to the climate-adjusted proportion of reflected solar irradiation, evapotranspiration, and net primary productivity across 36,630 grid cells at the European extent, classified into 10 types of forest, shrubland, and grassland habitats.

Forest herb species with similar European geographic ranges may respond differently to climate change.

Many phenological studies have shown that spring geophytes are very sensitive to climate change, responding by shifting flowering and fruiting dates. However, there is a gap in knowledge about climatic drivers of their distributions and range shifts under climate change. Here we aimed to estimate climate niche shifts for four widely distributed and common geophytes of the nemoral zone of Europe (Anemone nemorosa, Anemone ranunculoides, Convallaria majalis and Maianthemum bifolium) and to assess the threat level under various climate change scenarios.

Climate-trait relationships exhibit strong habitat specificity in plant communities across Europe.

Ecological theory predicts close relationships between macroclimate and functional traits. Yet, global climatic gradients correlate only weakly with the trait composition of local plant communities, suggesting that important factors have been ignored. Here, we investigate the consistency of climate-trait relationships for plant communities in European habitats.