Background Investigating the causes and consequences of intraspecific trait variation (ITV)
in plants is not novel, as it has long been recognized that such variation shapes biotic and …

The use of functional diversity analyses in ecology has grown exponentially over the past
two decades, broadening our understanding of biological diversity and its change across …

Forest restoration increases global forest area and ecosystem services such as primary
productivity and carbon storage. How tree species functional composition impacts the …

Species traits are an essential currency in ecology, evolution, biogeography, and
conservation biology. However, trait databases are unavailable for most organisms …

Human activity is causing wild populations to experience rapid trait change and local
extirpation. The resulting effects on intraspecific variation could have substantial …

The tundra is warming more rapidly than any other biome on Earth, and the potential
ramifications are far-reaching because of global feedback effects between vegetation and …

Biodiversity is essential to healthy ecosystem function, influencing productivity and
resilience to disturbance. Biodiversity loss endangers essential ecosystem services and …

One of ecology's grand challenges is developing general rules to explain and predict highly
complex systems. Understanding and predicting ecological processes from species' traits …

The metacommunity concept has the potential to integrate local and regional dynamics
within a general community ecology framework. To this end, the concept must move beyond …

Recent studies have shown that accounting for intraspecific trait variation (ITV) may better
address major questions in community ecology. However, a general picture of the relative …