scholarly journals A handbook of protocols for standardised and easy measurement of plant functional traits worldwide

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 335 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. C. Cornelissen ◽  
S. Lavorel ◽  
E. Garnier ◽  
S. Díaz ◽  
N. Buchmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Functional Traits ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Research Effort ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Large Numbers

There is growing recognition that classifying terrestrial plant species on the basis of their function (into 'functional types') rather than their higher taxonomic identity, is a promising way forward for tackling important ecological questions at the scale of ecosystems, landscapes or biomes. These questions include those on vegetation responses to and vegetation effects on, environmental changes (e.g. changes in climate, atmospheric chemistry, land use or other disturbances). There is also growing consensus about a shortlist of plant traits that should underlie such functional plant classifications, because they have strong predictive power of important ecosystem responses to environmental change and/or they themselves have strong impacts on ecosystem processes. The most favoured traits are those that are also relatively easy and inexpensive to measure for large numbers of plant species. Large international research efforts, promoted by the IGBP–GCTE Programme, are underway to screen predominant plant species in various ecosystems and biomes worldwide for such traits. This paper provides an international methodological protocol aimed at standardising this research effort, based on consensus among a broad group of scientists in this field. It features a practical handbook with step-by-step recipes, with relatively brief information about the ecological context, for 28 functional traits recognised as critical for tackling large-scale ecological questions.

scholarly journals New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide

2013 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 167 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Pérez-Harguindeguy ◽  
S. Díaz ◽  
E. Garnier ◽  
S. Lavorel ◽  
H. Poorter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Traits ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Leaf Traits ◽  
Plant Functional Traits ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Ecosystem Properties ◽  
Species Invasions ◽  
Wide Range

Plant functional traits are the features (morphological, physiological, phenological) that represent ecological strategies and determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels and influence ecosystem properties. Variation in plant functional traits, and trait syndromes, has proven useful for tackling many important ecological questions at a range of scales, giving rise to a demand for standardised ways to measure ecologically meaningful plant traits. This line of research has been among the most fruitful avenues for understanding ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes. It also has the potential both to build a predictive set of local, regional and global relationships between plants and environment and to quantify a wide range of natural and human-driven processes, including changes in biodiversity, the impacts of species invasions, alterations in biogeochemical processes and vegetation–atmosphere interactions. The importance of these topics dictates the urgent need for more and better data, and increases the value of standardised protocols for quantifying trait variation of different species, in particular for traits with power to predict plant- and ecosystem-level processes, and for traits that can be measured relatively easily. Updated and expanded from the widely used previous version, this handbook retains the focus on clearly presented, widely applicable, step-by-step recipes, with a minimum of text on theory, and not only includes updated methods for the traits previously covered, but also introduces many new protocols for further traits. This new handbook has a better balance between whole-plant traits, leaf traits, root and stem traits and regenerative traits, and puts particular emphasis on traits important for predicting species’ effects on key ecosystem properties. We hope this new handbook becomes a standard companion in local and global efforts to learn about the responses and impacts of different plant species with respect to environmental changes in the present, past and future.

scholarly journals Restoration ecologists might not get what they want: Global change shifts trade-offs among ecosystem functions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Fiedler ◽  
José A.F. Monteiro ◽  
Kristin B. Hulvey ◽  
Rachel J. Standish ◽  
Michael P. Perring ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
List Type ◽  
Trade Offs

ABSTRACTEcological restoration increasingly aims at improving ecosystem multifunctionality and making landscapes resilient to future threats, especially in biodiversity hotspots such as Mediterranean-type ecosystems. Successful realisation of such a strategy requires a fundamental mechanistic understanding of the link between ecosystem plant composition, plant traits and related ecosystem functions and services, as well as how climate change affects these relationships. An integrated approach of empirical research and simulation modelling with focus on plant traits can allow this understanding.Based on empirical data from a large-scale restoration project in a Mediterranean-type climate in Western Australia, we developed and validated the spatially explicit simulation model ModEST, which calculates coupled dynamics of nutrients, water and individual plants characterised by traits. We then simulated all possible combinations of eight plant species with different levels of diversity to assess the role of plant diversity and traits on multifunctionality, the provision of six ecosystem functions (covering three ecosystem services), as well as trade-offs and synergies among the functions under current and future climatic conditions.Our results show that multifunctionality cannot fully be achieved because of trade-offs among functions that are attributable to sets of traits that affect functions differently. Our measure of multifunctionality was increased by higher levels of planted species richness under current, but not future climatic conditions. In contrast, single functions were differently impacted by increased plant diversity. In addition, we found that trade-offs and synergies among functions shifted with climate change.Synthesis and application. Our results imply that restoration ecologists will face a clear challenge to achieve their targets with respect to multifunctionality not only under current conditions, but also in the long-term. However, once ModEST is parameterized and validated for a specific restoration site, managers can assess which target goals can be achieved given the set of available plant species and site-specific conditions. It can also highlight which species combinations can best achieve long-term improved multifunctionality due to their trait diversity.

An Investigation of Collective Human Behavior in Large-Scale Mixed Reality Spaces

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kynan Eng ◽  
Matti Mintz ◽  
Tobi Delbrück ◽  
Rodney J Douglas ◽  
Adrian M Whatley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Mixed Reality ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Overt Behavior ◽  
User Costs ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
User Attitudes ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior

Future mixed reality systems will need to support large numbers of simultaneous, nonexpert users at reasonable per-user costs if the systems are to be widely deployed within society in the short to medium term. We have constructed a prototype of such a system, an interactive entertainment space called Ada that was designed to behave like a simple organism. Using Ada we conducted two studies: the first assessing the effect of varying the operating parameters of the space on the collective behavior and attitudes of its users, and the second assessing the relationships among user demographics, behavior, and attitudes. Our results showed that small changes in the ambient settings of the environment have a significant effect on both user attitudes and behavior, and that the changes in user attitudes do not necessarily correspond to the environmental changes. We also found that individual user opinions are affected by demographics and reflected in overt behavior. Using these results, we propose some tentative guidelines for the design of future shared mixed reality spaces.

scholarly journals Flowering phenology shifts in response to biodiversity loss

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (13) ◽  
pp. 3463-3468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelia A. Wolf ◽  
Erika S. Zavaleta ◽  
Paul C. Selmants
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Flowering Phenology ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Precipitation Regimes

Observational studies and experimental evidence agree that rising global temperatures have altered plant phenology—the timing of life events, such as flowering, germination, and leaf-out. Other large-scale global environmental changes, such as nitrogen deposition and altered precipitation regimes, have also been linked to changes in flowering times. Despite our increased understanding of how abiotic factors influence plant phenology, we know very little about how biotic interactions can affect flowering times, a significant knowledge gap given ongoing human-caused alteration of biodiversity and plant community structure at the global scale. We experimentally manipulated plant diversity in a California serpentine grassland and found that many plant species flowered earlier in response to reductions in diversity, with peak flowering date advancing an average of 0.6 days per species lost. These changes in phenology were mediated by the effects of plant diversity on soil surface temperature, available soil N, and soil moisture. Peak flowering dates were also more dispersed among species in high-diversity plots than expected based on monocultures. Our findings illustrate that shifts in plant species composition and diversity can alter the timing and distribution of flowering events, and that these changes to phenology are similar in magnitude to effects induced by climate change. Declining diversity could thus contribute to or exacerbate phenological changes attributed to rising global temperatures.

scholarly journals Corrigendum to: New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (8) ◽  
pp. 715 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Pérez-Harguindeguy ◽  
S. Díaz ◽  
E. Garnier ◽  
S. Lavorel ◽  
H. Poorter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Traits ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Leaf Traits ◽  
Plant Functional Traits ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Ecosystem Properties ◽  
Species Invasions ◽  
Wide Range

Plant functional traits are the features (morphological, physiological, phenological) that represent ecological strategies and determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels and influence ecosystem properties. Variation in plant functional traits, and trait syndromes, has proven useful for tackling many important ecological questions at a range of scales, giving rise to a demand for standardised ways to measure ecologically meaningful plant traits. This line of research has been among the most fruitful avenues for understanding ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes. It also has the potential both to build a predictive set of local, regional and global relationships between plants and environment and to quantify a wide range of natural and human-driven processes, including changes in biodiversity, the impacts of species invasions, alterations in biogeochemical processes and vegetation–atmosphere interactions. The importance of these topics dictates the urgent need for more and better data, and increases the value of standardised protocols for quantifying trait variation of different species, in particular for traits with power to predict plant- and ecosystem-level processes, and for traits that can be measured relatively easily. Updated and expanded from the widely used previous version, this handbook retains the focus on clearly presented, widely applicable, step-by-step recipes, with a minimum of text on theory, and not only includes updated methods for the traits previously covered, but also introduces many new protocols for further traits. This new handbook has a better balance between whole-plant traits, leaf traits, root and stem traits and regenerative traits, and puts particular emphasis on traits important for predicting species' effects on key ecosystem properties. We hope this new handbook becomes a standard companion in local and global efforts to learn about the responses and impacts of different plant species with respect to environmental changes in the present, past and future.

scholarly journals GIFT – A Global Inventory of Floras and Traits for macroecology and biogeography

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Weigelt ◽  
Christian König ◽  
Holger Kreft
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Functional Traits ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Land Plant ◽  
Distribution Data ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Phylogenetic Information ◽  
Global Inventory

AbstractTo understand how traits and evolutionary history shape the geographic distribution of plant life on Earth, we need to integrate high-quality and global-scale distribution data with functional and phylogenetic information. Large-scale distribution data for plants are, however, often restricted to either certain taxonomic groups or geographic regions. For example, range maps only exist for a small subset of all plant species and digitally available point-occurrence information is strongly biased both geographically and taxonomically. An alternative, currently rarely used resource for macroecological and botanical research are regional Floras and checklists, which contain highly curated information about the species composition of a clearly defined area, and which together virtually cover the entire global land surface. Here we report on our recent efforts to mobilize this information for macroecological and biogeographical analyses in the GIFT database, the Global Inventory of Floras and Traits. GIFT integrates plant distributions, functional traits, phylogenetic information, and region-level geographic, environmental and socioeconomic data. GIFT currently holds species lists for 2,893 regions across the whole globe including ~315,000 taxonomically standardized species names (i.e. c. 80% of all known land plant species) and ~3 million species-by-region occurrences. In addition, GIFT contains information about the floristic status (native, endemic, alien and naturalized) and takes advantage of the wealth of trait information in the regional Floras, complemented by data from global trait databases. Based on a hierarchical and taxonomical derivation scheme, GIFT holds information for 83 functional traits and more than 2.3 million trait-by-species combinations and achieves unprecedented coverage in categorical traits such as woodiness (~233,000 spp.) or growth form (~213,000 spp.). Here we present the structure, content and automated workflows of GIFT and a corresponding web-interface (http://gift.uni-goettingen.de) as proof of concept for the feasibility and potential of mobilizing aggregated biodiversity data for global macroecological and biogeographical research.

Contrasting responses of native and alien plant species to soil properties shed new light on the invasion of dune systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 667-675
Author(s):  
Stefano Vitti ◽  
Elisa Pellegrini ◽  
Valentino Casolo ◽  
Giacomo Trotta ◽  
Francesco Boscutti
Keyword(s):  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Soil Properties ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Functional Traits ◽  
Soil Salinity ◽  
Plant Invasion ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Alien Plant ◽  
Dune Systems

Abstract Aims Among terrestrial ecosystems, coastal sandy dunes are particularly prone to alien plant invasion. Many studies related the invasion of dune habitats to anthropic causes, but less is known about the role of soil properties and plant traits in plant invasion. In this study, we tested the relationships between soil features and alien plant invasion in dune systems, focusing on the interplay between soil nutrients, soil salinity and plant functional traits. Methods Study sites were sandy barrier islands of the Marano and Grado lagoon (northern Adriatic Sea). One hundred plots (4 m × 4 m) were selected within 10 areas according to the main habitats occurring along the ecological gradient of dune system (foredune, backdune and saltmarsh). In each plot, we recorded all plant species occurrence and abundance and we collected a soil core. For each soil sample, soil texture, conductivity (as proxy of soil salinity), organic carbon and nitrogen content were analyzed and related to the species number and cover of native and alien plants. Variation of main reproductive and vegetative functional traits among habitats was also analyzed for both alien and native species. Important Findings Soil properties were strongly related to overall plant diversity, by differently affecting alien and native species pools. In backdune, the most invaded habitat, a high soil conductivity limited the number of alien species, whereas the content of soil organic carbon increased along with alien plant abundance, suggesting also the occurrence of potential feedback processes between plant invasion and soil. We found a significant convergence between native and alien plant functional trait spectra only in backdune habitat, where environmental conditions ameliorate and plant competition increases. Our findings suggest that in harsh conditions only native specialized plants can thrive while at intermediate conditions, soil properties gradient acts in synergy with plant traits to curb/facilitate alien plant richness.

scholarly journals Repeated patterns in the evolution of size in island plants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Biddick
Keyword(s):  
Functional Traits ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Leaf Size ◽  
Plant Functional Traits ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Island Rule ◽  
Island Populations ◽  
Stem Size ◽  
Island Evolution

<p>For reasons not fully understood, animals often evolve predictably on islands. For example, radiations of large, flightless birds are a common element of many island biotas. However, our understanding of how plants evolve on islands is comparatively poor. Further, an investigation into the evolution of island plants could help resolve unanswered questions about island animals. This thesis investigates insular size changes in a range of plant functional traits.   First (Chapter 2), I explored size changes in 9 species of vines that have colonized islands from the New Zealand and Australian mainland. I asked whether leaf–stem allometry prohibits leaves and stems from evolving independently from one another. Island populations consistently produced larger leaves than did mainland populations. Moreover, changes in leaf size were not associated with concomitant changes in stem size, suggesting that trait allometry does not govern trait evolution on islands.   Next (Chapter 3), I asked whether plants obey the infamous island rule, a putative trend in island evolution wherein small animals become large on islands and large animals become small. I demonstrate that plant stature and leaf area obey the island rule, and seed size does not. My findings illustrate that the island rule is more pervasive than previously considered, but that support for its predictions vary among plant functional traits.   Third (Chapter 4), I demonstrate that the island rule results from evolutionary drift along bounded trait domains. The island rule has long been hypothesized to result from a suite of selective pressures. Applying my model to island plants, I show that evolutionary drift is the most parsimonious explanation for the island rule pattern.   Finally (Chapter 5), to explore insular patterns in leaf size evolution, I conducted a large-scale, macroevolutionary analysis of leaf size on 98 of New Zealand’s offshore islands. Leaf gigantism was emblematic of island populations, and was most prominent in taxa with variable leaf morphologies on the mainland. Further, leaf gigantism was greatest in populations inhabiting old, distant islands, suggesting that time since divergence is a direct predictor of morphological differentiation between mainland and island populations.  Overall, this thesis reveals novel patterns, and helps disentangle the distinct roles of natural selection and drift, in the evolution of plant form and function on islands. Finally, this thesis illustrates how investigating the changes in plant traits can help identify the evolutionary mechanisms operating on islands.</p>

scholarly journals Repeated patterns in the evolution of size in island plants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew Biddick
Keyword(s):  
Functional Traits ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Leaf Size ◽  
Plant Functional Traits ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Island Rule ◽  
Island Populations ◽  
Stem Size ◽  
Island Evolution

<p>For reasons not fully understood, animals often evolve predictably on islands. For example, radiations of large, flightless birds are a common element of many island biotas. However, our understanding of how plants evolve on islands is comparatively poor. Further, an investigation into the evolution of island plants could help resolve unanswered questions about island animals. This thesis investigates insular size changes in a range of plant functional traits.   First (Chapter 2), I explored size changes in 9 species of vines that have colonized islands from the New Zealand and Australian mainland. I asked whether leaf–stem allometry prohibits leaves and stems from evolving independently from one another. Island populations consistently produced larger leaves than did mainland populations. Moreover, changes in leaf size were not associated with concomitant changes in stem size, suggesting that trait allometry does not govern trait evolution on islands.   Next (Chapter 3), I asked whether plants obey the infamous island rule, a putative trend in island evolution wherein small animals become large on islands and large animals become small. I demonstrate that plant stature and leaf area obey the island rule, and seed size does not. My findings illustrate that the island rule is more pervasive than previously considered, but that support for its predictions vary among plant functional traits.   Third (Chapter 4), I demonstrate that the island rule results from evolutionary drift along bounded trait domains. The island rule has long been hypothesized to result from a suite of selective pressures. Applying my model to island plants, I show that evolutionary drift is the most parsimonious explanation for the island rule pattern.   Finally (Chapter 5), to explore insular patterns in leaf size evolution, I conducted a large-scale, macroevolutionary analysis of leaf size on 98 of New Zealand’s offshore islands. Leaf gigantism was emblematic of island populations, and was most prominent in taxa with variable leaf morphologies on the mainland. Further, leaf gigantism was greatest in populations inhabiting old, distant islands, suggesting that time since divergence is a direct predictor of morphological differentiation between mainland and island populations.  Overall, this thesis reveals novel patterns, and helps disentangle the distinct roles of natural selection and drift, in the evolution of plant form and function on islands. Finally, this thesis illustrates how investigating the changes in plant traits can help identify the evolutionary mechanisms operating on islands.</p>

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