Scaling environmental change through the community-level: a trait-based response-and-effect framework for plants

• Published in: Revista de Biología Tropical
• Main Authors: Suding, Katharine Nash, Lavorel, Sandra, Chapin, F. S., Cornelissen, Johannes H. C., Díaz, Sandra, Garnier, Eric, Goldberg, Deborah E., Hooper, David U., Jackson, Stephen T., Navas, Marie-Laure
• Other Authors: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 830 N. University, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1048, USA, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-2525, USA, † CNRS UniversitÉ Joseph Fourier, BP 53 X 38041, Grenoble, Cedex 9, France, † Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA, § Department Systems Ecology, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, ¶ Instituto Multidisciplinario de BiologÍa Vegetal (CONICET-UNC), and FCEFyN, Universidad Nacional de CÓrdoba, C. C. 495, 5000 CÓrdoba, Argentina, ∥ Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175, CNRS - 1919, Route de Mende - F 34293 Montpellier, Cedex 5, France, †† Department of Biology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA, †† Department of Botany and Program in Ecology, 1000 E. University Ave., University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA, §§ DÉpartement des Sciences pour la Protection des Plantes et Ecologie, Ecole Nationale SupÉrieure Agronomique de Montpellier, 2 Place Viala, 34060 Montpellier, Cedex 1, France
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2008
• Subjects: Community Dynamics; Diversity; Ecosystem Responses; Effect and Response Framework; Functional Traits; Global Change; Leaf-level Scaling; Physiology; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Geology and Earth Sciences; Science; Arctic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/74386; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01557.x

Predicting ecosystem responses to global change is a major challenge in ecology. A critical step in that challenge is to understand how changing environmental conditions influence processes across levels of ecological organization. While direct scaling from individual to ecosystem dynamics can lead to robust and mechanistic predictions, new approaches are needed to appropriately translate questions through the community level. Species invasion, loss, and turnover all necessitate this scaling through community processes, but predicting how such changes may influence ecosystem function is notoriously difficult. We suggest that community-level dynamics can be incorporated into scaling predictions using a trait-based response–effect framework that differentiates the community response to environmental change (predicted by response traits) and the effect of that change on ecosystem processes (predicted by effect traits). We develop a response-and-effect functional framework, concentrating on how the relationships among species' response, effect, and abundance can lead to general predictions concerning the magnitude and direction of the influence of environmental change on function. We then detail several key research directions needed to better scale the effects of environmental change through the community level. These include (1) effect and response trait characterization, (2) linkages between response-and-effect traits, (3) the importance of species interactions on trait expression, and (4) incorporation of feedbacks across multiple temporal scales. Increasing rates of extinction and invasion that are modifying communities worldwide make such a research agenda imperative. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74386/1/j.1365-2486.2008.01557.x.pdf