Incoporating plant traits into global climate-vegetation models

DÍAZ, S

Sydney, Australia

Workshop; Next generation vegetation schemes in global change models; 2005

McQuarie University - ARC-NZ Research Network for Vegetation Function

There are solid antecedents (e.g. Mooney 1970s, Grime and Chapin 1970s to 2000s, etc, etc.) that plant traits matter for ecosystem funcitoning. There are also two pieces of work that show the existence of a universal trade-off between acquisitive versus conservative plants. This has been shown nicely in Wright et al. (2005) and in the Díaz et al. (2004) 640-species dataset from 4 countries. Here we considered 14 traits, and they were measured from scratch for every species using the same standard protocols, and we have all trait values for all species. So this is a pretty solid database, and it is largely independent form that of Wright et al. And we found basically the same, a universal acquisitive vs. conservative trade-off, consistent across countries and taxa. These Plants that go for it, live fast and die young, and plants that stay put, grow slowly and maximize the protection of their acquired resources. And these are the traits most strongly associated to these trade-offs. They are a bit different form the ones identified by Wright et al. because the measurements were different, but the meaning I believe is similar. So we have the traits that matter. Although I have to say that we have a pretty good grasp in resource-related traits but not so much of temperature-related traits. What are the issues that I think might not be so straightforward? (1) . Response vs. effect traits; (2) . The role of evolutionary history of disturbance; (3) . Limitations to functional biodiversity by insufficient dispersal. This talk is going to address these three main issues.