New woody plant functional types (PFTs) are defined and parameterised for use in the SAVANNA ecosystem model (Coughenour, 1992, 1993). Details of the methods for parameterisation are available from the authors on request. The new woody PFTS are defined in terms of growth form, leaf size and defences in relation to large mammal herbivores. 1. shrub types are <4 m (Zizka et al., 2014), 2. fine-leaf types have bipinnate leaves with leptophyllous- or nanophyllous-sized leaflets (<225 mm2) according to Raunkaier’s leaf size classes (Fuller and Bakke, 1918) given that leaflets of compound leaves are separate morphological units analogous to simple leaves (Milla, 2012; Mo et al., 2022), 3. high chemical defence investment (CDI) types have either nitrogen:acid detergent fibre (N:ADF) <0.10 (Wallis et al., 2012) or condensed tannin (CT) >5% (Cooper and Owen-Smith, 1985) when expressed in sorghum tannin or leucocyanidin equivalents as determined by the acid-butanol assay, 4. all types, except fine_highcdi and fine_lowcdi, have the square-root of Charles-Dominique et al.'s (2017) "investment in structural defence" (ISD) < 13.