Greater diversity in functional morphology should be associated with the evolution of greater
ontogenetic diversity, an expectation difficult to test in most long-lived wild organisms. In the …

One foundational assumption of trait-based ecology is that traits can predict species
demography. However, the links between traits and demographic rates are, in general, not …

Evolutionary developmental biology (evo‐devo) explores the link between developmental
patterning and phenotypic change through evolutionary time. In this review, we highlight the …

Plant functional strategies change considerably as plants develop, driven by intraindividual
variability in anatomical, morphological, physiological and architectural traits …

The study of modularity allows recognition of suites of character covariation that potentially
diagnose units of evolutionary change. One prominent perspective predicts that natural …

Wood formation was present in early angiosperms, but has been highly modified through
evolution to generate the anatomical diversity seen in extant angiosperm lineages. In this …

Trade‐offs among functional traits reveal major plant strategies that can give insight into
species distributions and ecosystem processes. However, current identification of plant …

It has been hypothesized that tropical trees partition forest light environments through a life
history trade‐off between juvenile growth and survival; however, the generality of this trade …

Most biological structures carry out multiple functions. Focusing on only one function to
make adaptive inferences overlooks that manifold selection pressures and tradeoffs shape …

Lineages tend to retain ecological characteristics of their ancestors through time. However,
for some traits, selection during evolutionary history may have also played a role in …