Global patterns of regional (gamma) plant diversity are relatively well known, but whether these patterns hold for local communities, and the dependence on spatial grain, remain controversial. Using data on 170,272 georeferenced local plant assemblages, we created global maps of alpha diversity (local species richness) for vascular plants at three different spatial grains, for forests and non-forests. We show that alpha diversity is consistently high across grains in some regions (for example, Andean-Amazonian foothills), but regional ‘scaling anomalies’ (deviations from the positive correlation) exist elsewhere, particularly in Eurasian temperate forests with disproportionally higher fine-grained richness and many African tropical forests with disproportionally higher coarse-grained richness. The influence of different climatic, topographic and biogeographical variables on alpha diversity also varies across grains. Our multi-grain maps return a nuanced understanding of vascular plant biodiversity patterns that complements classic maps of biodiversity hotspots and will improve predictions of global change effects on biodiversity.

Motivation: Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co‐occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots have been recorded, most are not available to the global research community. A recent initiative, called ‘sPlot’, compiled the first global vegetation plot database, and continues to grow and curate it. The sPlot database, however, is extremely unbalanced spatially and environmentally, and is not open‐access. Here, we address both these issues by (a) resampling the vegetation plots using several environmental variables as sampling strata and (b) securing permission from data holders of 105 local‐to‐regional datasets to openly release data. We thus present sPlotOpen, the largest open‐access dataset of vegetation plots ever released. sPlotOpen can be used to explore global diversity at the plant community level, as ground truth data in remote sensing applications, or as a baseline for biodiversity monitoring.Main types of variable contained: Vegetation plots (n = 95,104) recording cover or abundance of naturally co‐occurring vascular plant species within delimited areas. sPlotOpen contains three partially overlapping resampled datasets (c. 50,000 plots each), to be used as replicates in global analyses. Besides geographical location, date, plot size, biome, elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation type, naturalness, coverage of various vegetation layers, and source dataset, plot‐level data also include community‐weighted means and variances of 18 plant functional traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database.Spatial location and grain: Global, 0.01–40,000 m².Time period and grain: 1888–2015, recording dates.Major taxa and level of measurement: 42,677 vascular plant taxa, plot‐level records.Software format: Three main matrices (.csv), relationally linked.

Nuevas observaciones sobre la vegetación del sur del Perú. Del Desierto Pacífico al Altiplano.

RESUMEN. Datos sobre la vegetación de los Llanos Occidentales del Orinoco (Venezuela). Los Llanos Occidentales del Orinoco se caracterizan por ser una gran cuenca sedimentaria donde se alternan sustratos arcillosos y arenosos. El bioclima infratropical subhúmedo y la cantidad de ambientes palustres originan una gran diversidad de comunidades vegetales, en especial de helófitos, pleustohelófitos e hidrófitos. Cuando la inundación es más escasa, aparecen los bosques, arbustedas y los pastos secos de la sabana, que forman isleos de comunidades vegetales en medio de la llanura inundable. Hemos podido reconocer 17 asociaciones repartidas en 10 clases fitosociológicas: Cabombo- Nymphaeetea (comunidades de hidrófitos), Ceibetea occidentalis (bosques y arbustedas), Cladietea jamaicensis (comunidades de helófitos), Coccolobietea obtusifoliae (arbustedas riparias), Lemnetea minoris (comunidades de pleustófitos), Leptocoryphio-Trachypogonetea (pastizales secos de la sabana), Pistio stratiotidis-Eichhornietea crassipedis (comunidades de pleustohelófitos), Polygono arenastri-Poetea annuae (comunidades nitrófilas resistentes al pisoteo), Sido-Stachytarphetaetea (comunidades nitrófilas) y Xyridetea savanensis (pastizales temporalmente inundados con plantas anuales). Además, describimos como novedades sintaxonómicas 4 asociaciones (Bromelio chrysanthae- Platymiscietum pinnati, Geophiletum repentis, Helictero guazumifoliae-Bauhinietum benthamianae y Randio venezuelensis-Annonetum jahnii), 6 alianzas (Coccolobion obtusifoliae, Desmonco orthacanthi-Platymiscion pinnati, Heterantherion reniformis, Nectandro globosae-Viticion orinocensis, Oryzion perennis y Wissadulo periplocifoliae-Cassion torae), 3 órdenes (Bactrido guineensis-Cecropietalia peltatae, Coccolobietalia obtusifoliae y Eleocharitetalia minimae) y 1 clase (Coccolobietea obtusifoliae). Palabras clave. Vegetación, sintaxonomía, Llanos, Venezuela. Data about the vegetation of the Occidental Llanos of the Orinoco (Venezuela). The western Llanos of the Orinoco river are a sedimentary basin of sandy and clayey mixed soils. The infratropical subhumid bioclimate and the large marshes cause a high diversity of plant communities consisting specially of helophytes, pleustohelophytes and hydrophytes. When there is a little flooding, forest, shrubs and dry pastures of the savannas appear, forming islands of plant communities in the swampy plain. Seventeen associations belonging to 10 classes have been recognized (Cabombo- Nymphaeetea (hydrophytic communities), Ceibetea occidentalis (forests and shrubs), Cladietea jamaicensis (helophytic communities), Coccolobietea obtusifoliae (riparian shrubs), Lemnetea minoris (pleustophytic communities), Leptocoryphio-Trachypogonetea (dry pastures of the savanna), Pistio stratiotidis-Eichhornietea crassipedis (pleustohelophytic communities), Polygono arenastri-Poetea annuae (nitrophilous communities adapted to treading), Sido-Stachytarphetaetea (nitrophilous communities) and Xyridetea savanensis (temporal flooded pastures with annual plants). Moreover, 4 new associations (Bromelio chrysanthae-Platymiscietum pinnati, Geophiletum repentis, Helictero guazumifoliae-Bauhinietum benthamianae and Randio venezuelensis-Annonetum jahnii), 6 alliances (Coccolobion obtusifoliae, Desmonco orthacanthi-Platymiscion pinnati, Heterantherion reniformis, Nectandro globosae-Viticion orinocensis, Oryzion perennis y Wissadulo periplocifoliae-Cassion torae), 3 orders (Bactrido guineensis-Cecropietalia peltatae, Coccolobietalia obtusifoliae and Eleocharitetalia minimae) and 1 class (Coccolobietea obtusifoliae) are described. Key words. Vegetation, syntaxonomy, Llanos, Venezuela.

Plants belonging to the genus Taraxacum are considered a nutritious food, being consumed raw or cooked. Additionally, these plants have long been used in folk medicine due to their choleretic, diuretic, antitumor, antioxidant, antiinflammatory, and hepatoprotective properties. This genus, with its complex taxonomy, includes several species that are difficult to distinguish. Its traditional use must be related not only to T. officinale F.H. Wigg., the most studied species, but also to others. The aim of this work is to compare five different common South European species of Taraxacum (T. obovatum (Willd.) DC., T. marginellum H. Lindb., T. hispanicum H. Lindb., T. lambinonii Soest and T. lacistrum Sahlin), in order to find differences between antioxidant and cytotoxic activities among them. Dissimilarities between species in LC/MS patterns, in in vitro and intracellular antioxidant activity and also in the cytotoxicity assay were found. T. marginellum was the most efficient extract reducing intracellular ROS levels although in in vitro assays, T. obovatum was the best free radical scavenger. A relevant cytotoxic effect was found in T. lacistrum extract over HeLa and HepG2 cell lines.