MultiTraits (version 0.6.0)

CSR_plot: Create a Ternary Plot for CSR Plant Ecological Strategies

Description

This function creates a ternary plot to visualize plant ecological strategies based on the CSR (Competitor-Stress tolerator-Ruderal) framework developed by Grime (1974). The plot is built using ggplot2 and displays the relative proportions of C, S, and R strategies for each species or sample.

Usage

CSR_plot(
  data,
  point_size = 3,
  point_shape = 21,
  custom_colors = c(C = "#E60D0D", `C/CR` = "#BA0D3B", `C/CS` = "#BA3B0D", CR =
    "#7A0D7A", `C/CSR` = "#8A3B3B", CS = "#7A7A0D", `CR/CSR` = "#6B2B6B", `CS/CSR` =
    "#6B6B2B", `R/CR` = "#3B0DBA", CSR = "#545454", `S/CS` = "#3BBA0D", `R/CSR` =
    "#3B3B8A", `S/CSR` = "#3B8A3B", R = "#0D0DE6", `SR/CSR` = "#2B6B6B", S = "#0DE60D",
    `R/SR` = "#0D3BBA", `S/SR` = "#0DBA3B", SR = "#0D7A7A")
)

Value

A ggplot object representing a ternary plot with:

• Points colored by CSR strategy type

• Ternary coordinate system with C, S, R axes

• Legend showing strategy types and their colors

• Grid lines and arrows for better visualization

Arguments

data

A data frame containing CSR strategy data. Must include columns:

C

Numeric vector of Competitor strategy values (0-100)

S

Numeric vector of Stress-tolerator strategy values (0-100)

R

Numeric vector of Ruderal strategy values (0-100)

type

Character vector indicating the CSR strategy type/classification

point_size

Numeric value specifying the size of points in the plot. Default is 3.

point_shape

Numeric value specifying the shape of points in the plot. Default is 21 (filled circle with border).

custom_colors

Named character vector specifying custom colors for each CSR strategy type. Default includes 19 predefined colors for all possible CSR combinations.

Details

The CSR strategy framework classifies plants into three primary functional types based on their ecological strategies:

C (Competitors)

Species adapted to productive, low-stress environments

S (Stress-tolerators)

Species adapted to unproductive, high-stress environments

R (Ruderals)

Species adapted to productive, high-disturbance environments

The ternary plot allows visualization of the relative contribution of each strategy, where each point represents a species positioned according to its C, S, and R values (which sum to 100%).

References

1. Grime, J.P. (1974). Vegetation classification by reference to strategies. Nature, 250, 26–31.

2. Hodgson, J.G., Wilson, P.J., Hunt, R., Grime, J.P. & Thompson, K. (1999). Allocating CSR plant functional types: a soft approach to a hard problem. Oikos, 85, 282–294.

3. Caccianiga, M., Luzzaro, A., Pierce, S., Ceriani, R.M. & Cerabolini, B. (2006). The functional basis of a primary succession resolved by CSR classification. Oikos, 112, 10–20.

4. Pierce, S., Negreiros, D., Cerabolini, B.E.L., Kattge, J., Díaz, S., et al. (2017). A global method for calculating plant CSR ecological strategies applied across biomes world-wide. Functional Ecology, 31: 444-457.

See Also

CSR or CSR_hodgson for calculating CSR strategies from plant functional traits

Examples

data(PFF)
head(PFF)
traits <- data.frame(LA=PFF$Leaf_area, LDMC=PFF$LDMC, SLA=PFF$SLA)
head(traits)
result <- CSR(data = traits)
head(result)
CSR_plot(data=result)