C. Data set description
The present dataset contains images and records of quantitative
morphological traits for 94,214 diaspores from 1,437 taxa (including
species, lower ranks, and three sections) in 513 genera, and 96 families
from Central Europe kept in the seed collection of the Chair of Ecology
and Conservation Biology at the University of Regensburg, Germany. The
most represented families in the database are Asteraceae (191 taxa; 65
genera), Poaceae (113; 48), Brassicaceae (93; 43), Cyperaceae (85; 11),
and Fabaceae (80; 22), with ~39% of all reported
species (Figure 1). Images from diaspores were obtained with a flatbed
scanner in a high-contrast background and pre-processed for colour
standardization; quantitative morphological traits were extracted from
the images (Dayrell et al. 2023). The morphological traits
include: 1) morphometric measurements (length, width, area, perimeter,
aspect ratio, circularity, surface structure, and solidity); 2) colour
measurements for human recognition purposes (Figure 2; mean, median, and
most dominant colours in sRGB), and ecological and evolutionary studies
(independent of any particular animal visual system; linear sRGB); 3)
standardized contour of diaspores (50 coordinates for each seed) for
shape analysis methods. Diaspores of the evaluated taxa were classified
according to the presence and absence of appendages and structures
(e.g., fleshy structures, elongated appendages, surface hairs).