Predicting the effects of anthropogenic changes in climate, atmospheric composition and
land use on vegetation patterns has been a central concern of recent ecological research …

The South Brazilian grasslands occupy some 13.7 million ha and support very high levels of
biodiversity. This paper reviews the current state of ecological knowledge on South Brazilian …

Ecologists need a common language of plant traits in order to make comparisons across
regions and scales, pool data, and maximize the utility of the data. To develop such a set of …

Plant functional types (PFTs) bridge the gap between plant physiology and community and
ecosystem processes, thus providing a powerful tool in climate change research. We aimed …

The plant functional types (growth forms) traditionally recognized by arctic ecologists provide
a useful framework for predicting vegetation responses to, and effects on, ecosystem …

Summary 1 Range management is based on the response of plant species and
communities to grazing intensity. The identification of easily measured plant functional traits …

1 Species composition and disturbance state (level of soil disturbance, grazing and water
addition) were recorded for 120 (30-m ^2) plots in temperate grassland of the New England …

Previous work on trait correlation patterns has contributed to the identification of broad
patterns of plant distribution along environmental gradients in vegetation. However, these …

Community assembly is a branch of ecology that looks at how communities are assembled
as they follow trajectories through time. A trajectory is controlled by biotic and abiotic …

Five management treatments have been applied to a calcareous grassland since 1974 to
study their efficiency in maintaining high diversity of grassland species. The treatments were …