Fine roots acquire essential soil resources and mediate biogeochemical cycling in terrestrial
ecosystems. Estimates of carbon and nutrient allocation to build and maintain these …

Trait‐based approaches provide a useful framework to investigate plant strategies for
resource acquisition, growth, and competition, as well as plant impacts on ecosystem …

Variation and tradeoffs within and among plant traits are increasingly being harnessed by
empiricists and modelers to understand and predict ecosystem processes under changing …

Background and aims Fine roots contribute to ecosystem carbon, water, and nutrient fluxes
through resource acquisition, respiration, exudation, and turnover, but are understudied in …

There is wide breadth of root function within ecosystems that should be considered when
modeling the terrestrial biosphere. Root structure and function are closely associated with …

Fine roots support the water and nutrient demands of plants and supply carbon to soils.
Quantifying turnover times of fine roots is crucial for modeling soil organic matter dynamics …

The fine roots of plants are key structures enabling soil resource acquisition, yet our
understanding of their dynamics and the factors governing them is still underdeveloped …

Although fine roots play an integral role in biogeochemical cycling and supporting plant
function, fundamental understanding of the mechanisms that control fine root life span is …

The search for a root economics spectrum (RES) has been sparked by recent interest in trait‐
based plant ecology. By analogy with the one‐dimensional leaf economics spectrum (LES) …

Trait‐based approaches have led to significant advances in plant ecology, but are currently
biased toward above‐ground traits. It is becoming clear that a stronger emphasis on below …