Revisiting the H oly G rail: using plant functional traits to understand ecological processes

JL Funk, JE Larson, GM Ames, BJ Butterfield… - Biological …, 2017 - Wiley Online Library
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 …

Going underground: root traits as drivers of ecosystem processes

RD Bardgett, L Mommer, FT De Vries - Trends in ecology & evolution, 2014 - cell.com
Ecologists are increasingly adopting trait-based approaches to understand how community
change influences ecosystem processes. However, most of this research has focussed on …

[HTML][HTML] Climatic and soil factors explain the two-dimensional spectrum of global plant trait variation

JS Joswig, C Wirth, MC Schuman, J Kattge… - Nature Ecology & …, 2022 - nature.com
Plant functional traits can predict community assembly and ecosystem functioning and are
thus widely used in global models of vegetation dynamics and land–climate feedbacks. Still …

[HTML][HTML] Plant functional traits have globally consistent effects on competition

G Kunstler, D Falster, DA Coomes, F Hui, RM Kooyman… - Nature, 2016 - nature.com
Phenotypic traits and their associated trade-offs have been shown to have globally
consistent effects on individual plant physiological functions,,, but how these effects scale up …

The world‐wide 'fast–slow'plant economics spectrum: a traits manifesto

PB Reich - Journal of ecology, 2014 - Wiley Online Library
The leaf economics spectrum (LES) provides a useful framework for examining species
strategies as shaped by their evolutionary history. However, that spectrum, as originally …

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

N Perez-Harguindeguy, S Diaz, E Garnier… - Australian Journal of …, 2016 - CSIRO Publishing
Plant functional traits are the features (morphological, physiological, phenological) that
represent ecological strategies and determine how plants respond to environmental factors …

Plant secondary metabolites: a key driver of litter decomposition and soil nutrient cycling

M Chomel, M Guittonny‐Larchevêque… - Journal of …, 2016 - Wiley Online Library
A broad and diversified group of compounds, secondary metabolites, are known to govern
species interactions in ecosystems. Recent studies have shown that secondary metabolites …

Within‐species patterns challenge our understanding of the leaf economics spectrum

LDL Anderegg, LT Berner, G Badgley, ML Sethi… - Ecology …, 2018 - Wiley Online Library
The utility of plant functional traits for predictive ecology relies on our ability to interpret trait
variation across multiple taxonomic and ecological scales. Using extensive data sets of trait …

Abiotic drivers and plant traits explain landscape‐scale patterns in soil microbial communities

FT De Vries, P Manning, JRB Tallowin… - Ecology …, 2012 - Wiley Online Library
The controls on aboveground community composition and diversity have been extensively
studied, but our understanding of the drivers of belowground microbial communities is …

Which is a better predictor of plant traits: temperature or precipitation?

AT Moles, SE Perkins, SW Laffan… - Journal of vegetation …, 2014 - Wiley Online Library
Question Are plant traits more closely correlated with mean annual temperature, or with
mean annual precipitation? Location Global. Methods We quantified the strength of the …