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 …

Generalizing the effect of traits on performance across species may be achievable if traits
explain variation in population fitness. However, testing relationships between traits and vital …

Functional ecology is the branch of ecology that focuses on various functions that species
play in the community or ecosystem in which they occur. This accessible guide offers the …

Biodiversity encompasses multiple attributes such as the richness and abundance of
species (taxonomic diversity), the presence of different evolutionary lineages (phylogenetic …

The identification of patterns in life-history strategies across the tree of life is essential to our
prediction of population persistence, extinction, and diversification. Plants exhibit a wide …

Synthesizing trait observations and knowledge across the Tree of Life remains a grand
challenge for biodiversity science. Species traits are widely used in ecological and …

Knowing where species occur is fundamental to many ecological and environmental
applications. Species distribution models (SDMs) are typically based on correlations …

Background Below-ground bud banks have experienced much recent interest due to
discoveries that they (1) account for the majority of seasonal population renewal in many …

Life history strategies, which combine schedules of survival, development, and reproduction,
shape how natural selection acts on species' heritable traits and organismal fitness …

Forecasts of ecological dynamics in changing environments are increasingly important, and
are available for a plethora of variables, such as species abundance and distribution …