Plant roots have greatly diversified in form and function since the emergence of the first land
plants,, but the global organization of functional traits in roots remains poorly understood,.
Here we analyse a global dataset of 10 functionally important root traits in metabolically
active first-order roots, collected from 369 species distributed across the natural plant
communities of 7 biomes. Our results identify a high degree of organization of root traits
across species and biomes, and reveal a pattern that differs from expectations based on …

Plant roots have greatly diversified in form and function since the emergence of the first land
plants, but the global organization of functional traits in roots remains poorly understood.
Here we analyse a global dataset of 10 functionally important root traits in metabolically
active first-order roots, collected from 369 species distributed across the natural plant
communities of 7 biomes. Our results identify a high degree of organization of root traits
across species and biomes, and reveal a pattern that differs from expectations based on …