Skip to main content
Journal cover image

BAAD: a Biomass And Allometry Database for woody plants

Publication ,  Journal Article
Falster, DS; Duursma, RA; Ishihara, MI; Barneche, DR; FitzJohn, RG; Vårhammar, A; Aiba, M; Ando, M; Anten, N; Aspinwall, MJ; Baltzer, JL ...
Published in: Ecology
May 1, 2015

Understanding how plants are constructed; i.e., how key size dimensions and the amount of mass invested in different tissues varies among individuals; is essential for modeling plant growth, estimating carbon stocks, and mapping energy fluxes in the terrestrial biosphere. Allocation patterns can differ through ontogeny, but also among coexisting species and among species adapted to different environments. While a variety of models dealing with biomass allocation exist, we lack a synthetic understanding of the underlying processes. This is partly due to the lack of suitable data sets for validating and parameterizing models. To that end, we present the Biomass and allometry database (BAAD) for woody plants. The BAAD contains 259 634 measurements collected in 176 different studies, from 21 084 individuals across 678 species. Most of these data come from existing publications. However, raw data were rarely made public at time of publication. Thus the BAAD contains individual level data from different studies, transformed into standard units and variable names. The transformations were achieved using a common workflow for all raw data files. Other features that distinguish the BAAD are: (i) measurements were for individual plants rather than stand averages; (ii) individuals spanning a range of sizes were measured; (iii) inclusion of plants from 0.01-100 m in height; and (iii) biomass was estimated directly, i.e., not indirectly via allometric equations (except in very large trees where biomass was estimated from detailed subsampling). We included both wild and artificially grown plants. The data set contains the following size metrics: total leaf area; area of stem crosssection including sapwood, heartwood, and bark; height of plant and crown base, crown area, and surface area; and the dry mass of leaf, stem, branches, sapwood, heartwood, bark, coarse roots, and fine root tissues. We also report other properties of individuals (age, leaf size, leaf mass per area, wood density, nitrogen content of leaves and wood), as well as information about the growing environment (location, light, experimental treatment, vegetation type) where available. It is our hope that making these data available will improve our ability to understand plant growth, ecosystem dynamics, and carbon cycling in the world's vegetation.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Ecology

DOI

ISSN

0012-9658

Publication Date

May 1, 2015

Volume

96

Issue

5

Start / End Page

1445

Related Subject Headings

  • Ecology
  • 4102 Ecological applications
  • 3109 Zoology
  • 3103 Ecology
  • 0603 Evolutionary Biology
  • 0602 Ecology
  • 0501 Ecological Applications
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Falster, D. S., Duursma, R. A., Ishihara, M. I., Barneche, D. R., FitzJohn, R. G., Vårhammar, A., … York, R. A. (2015). BAAD: a Biomass And Allometry Database for woody plants. Ecology, 96(5), 1445. https://doi.org/10.1890/14-1889.1
Falster, D. S., R. A. Duursma, M. I. Ishihara, D. R. Barneche, R. G. FitzJohn, A. Vårhammar, M. Aiba, et al. “BAAD: a Biomass And Allometry Database for woody plants.” Ecology 96, no. 5 (May 1, 2015): 1445. https://doi.org/10.1890/14-1889.1.
Falster DS, Duursma RA, Ishihara MI, Barneche DR, FitzJohn RG, Vårhammar A, et al. BAAD: a Biomass And Allometry Database for woody plants. Ecology. 2015 May 1;96(5):1445.
Falster, D. S., et al. “BAAD: a Biomass And Allometry Database for woody plants.” Ecology, vol. 96, no. 5, May 2015, p. 1445. Scopus, doi:10.1890/14-1889.1.
Falster DS, Duursma RA, Ishihara MI, Barneche DR, FitzJohn RG, Vårhammar A, Aiba M, Ando M, Anten N, Aspinwall MJ, Baltzer JL, Baraloto C, Battaglia M, Battles JJ, Lamberty BB, Van Breugel M, Camac J, Claveau Y, Coll L, Dannoura M, Delagrange S, Domec JC, Fatemi F, Feng W, Gargaglione V, Goto Y, Hagihara A, Hall JS, Hamilton S, Harja D, Hiura T, Holdaway R, Hutley LB, Ichie T, Jokela EJ, Kantola A, Kelly JWG, Kenzo T, King D, Kloeppel BD, Kohyama T, Komiyama A, Laclau JP, Lusk CH, Maguire DA, Le Maire G, Mäkelä A, Markesteijn L, Marshall J, McCulloh K, Miyata I, Mokany K, Mori S, Myster RW, Nagano M, Naidu SL, Nouvellon Y, O’Grady AP, O’Hara KL, Ohtsuka T, Osada N, Osunkoya OO, Peri PL, Petritan AM, Poorter L, Portsmuth A, Potvin C, Ransijn J, Reid D, Ribeiro SC, Roberts SD, Rodríguez R, Acosta AS, Santa-Regina I, Sasa K, Selaya NG, Sillett SC, Sterck F, Takagi K, Tange T, Tanouchi H, Tissue D, Umehara T, Utsugi H, Vadeboncoeur MA, Valladares F, Vanninen P, Wang JR, Wenk E, Williams R, De Aquino Ximenes F, Yamaba A, Yamada T, Yamakura T, Yanai RD, York RA. BAAD: a Biomass And Allometry Database for woody plants. Ecology. 2015 May 1;96(5):1445.
Journal cover image

Published In

Ecology

DOI

ISSN

0012-9658

Publication Date

May 1, 2015

Volume

96

Issue

5

Start / End Page

1445

Related Subject Headings

  • Ecology
  • 4102 Ecological applications
  • 3109 Zoology
  • 3103 Ecology
  • 0603 Evolutionary Biology
  • 0602 Ecology
  • 0501 Ecological Applications