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I taught this short-course in 2019 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (RJ, Brazil) during the 'XXIII Biosemana da UFRJ'
COURSE DESCRIPTION
COURSE DESCRIPTION
How is Global Change affecting the ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services that the humanity depends on to survive? In this short-course, students learn how the ecological functional approach, applied at different spatial scales (individuals, communities and ecosystems), can provide answers to this urgent question. Along the course, students are introduced to key concepts, tools, and trends in Functional Ecology. They also engage in hands-on activities to measure functional traits, compute functional diversity indexes, and identify ecological strategies in plants.
LECTURES
LECTURES
DAY 1 - Introduction to Functional Ecology: searching for the 'Holy Grail'
What is Functional Ecology and why should I study it?
Functional Ecology: the 'Holy Grail' of simplification, generalization and prediction;
What are functional traits? Why and how to measure them?
The Panglossian paradigm: not all traits are functional…
Filling the 'Holy Grail': how to select, measure and validate the traits?
Everyone can drink from the 'Holy Grail': TRY and other global trait databases.
DAY 2 - Functional Ecology: from individuals to communities
Super trump game: why anyone can be good at everything?
The trade-offs in plants;
The universal strategies in plants;
Leaf economic spectrum: 'to life fast and die young' or 'to live slow and die old';
Where are the root, shoot, fruit, flower and seed economic spectra?
CSR triangle: acquisition, maintenance or regeneration?
The periodic table of niches;
Filtering species to assemble communities: dispersal, abiotic and biotic filters;
Functional convergence and divergence: the patterns are simple, but the mechanisms are not.
During this short-courses students learn how to identify the CSR (competitor; stress-tolerant; ruderal) class for plant species.
DAY 3 - Functional Ecology: from communities to ecosystems
Biodiversity and Ecosystems Functions;
Properties, services and stability of ecosystems;
Deciphering the role of dominant and subordinate species;
The many functional diversities;
The alphabet soup of functional diversity: CWM, FD, FDiv, FEve, FRic;
Which functional diversity indexes should I use?
The five virtues
Virtue 1: predicting the effects of global change on community composition and ecosystem functioning;
Virtue 2: anticipating the effects of species extinctions;
Virtue 3: predicting species invasibility;
Virtue 4: providing innovative approaches for ecological restoration;
Virtue 5: changing perspectives in agriculture.
The five sins
Sin 1: the intraspecific trait variation;
Sin 2: the scale;
Sin 3: the biotic interactions;
Sin 4: the fitness;
Sin 5: the phylogeny.
Materials for the practical classes. Including the super trump game of Brazilian trees (available here).
PRACTICAL CLASSES
PRACTICAL CLASSES
Measuring functional traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content);
LITERATURE
LITERATURE
Books:
• Grime JP, Pierce S. (2012) The Evolutionary Strategies that Shape Ecosystems. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
• Garnier E, Navas M, Grigulis K. (2016). Plant Functional Diversity: Organism traits, community structure, and ecosystem properties. Oxford Univeristy Press.
Day 1:
• Díaz S, Cabido M. (2001). Vive la différence: plant functional diversity matters to ecosystem processes. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 16(11), 646–655.
• Kattge J, Díaz S, Lavorel S, Prentice IC, Leadley P, Bönisch G. ... Wirth C. (2011). TRY - a global database of plant traits. Global Change Biology, 17(9), 2905–2935.
• Lewontin & Gould (1979) The Sapandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigma. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 205(1161), 581-598.
• Perez-Harguindeguy et al. (2013) New handbook for standardised measurement of plant functional traits worldwide. Australian Journal of Botany, 64: 715–716.
• Rosado BHP, Dias ATC, Mattos EA de. (2013). Going Back to Basics: Importance of Ecophysiology when Choosing Functional Traits for Studying Communities and Ecosystems. Natureza & Conservação, 11(1), 15–22.
• Suding KN, Lavorel S, Chapin FS, Cornelissen JHC, Díaz S, Garnier E, ... Navas M-L. (2008). Scaling environmental change through the community-level: a trait-based response-and-effect framework for plants. Global Change Biology, 14(5), 1125–1140.
Day 2:
• Carvajal DE, Loayza AP, Rios RS, Delpiano CA, Squeo FA. (2019). A hyper‐arid environment shapes an inverse pattern of the fast–slow plant economics spectrum for above, but not below‐ground resource acquisition strategies. Journal of Ecology, 107: 1079– 1092.
• Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE. (2009). Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters, 12(4), 351–366.
• Díaz S, Kattge J, Cornelissen JHC, Wright IJ, Lavorel S, Dray S, ... Gorné LD. (2015). The global spectrum of plant form and function. Nature, 1–17.
• Grime JP. (2006). Trait convergence and trait divergence in herbaceous plant communities: Mechanisms and consequences. Journal of Vegetation Science, 17: 255-260.
• Herben T, Jitka K, Milan C. (2017) Philip Grimes fourth corner: are there plant species adapted to high disturbance and low productivity? Oikos, doi: 10.1111/oik.05090.
• Keddy PA. (1992) Assembly and response rules two goals for predictive community ecology. Journal of Vegetation Science, 3(2):157-164.
• Larson JE, Funk JL. (2016). Regeneration: an overlooked aspect of trait-based plant community assembly models. Journal of Ecology, 104(5), 1284–1298.
• Reich PB. (2014). The world-wide ‘fast – slow’ plant economics spectrum: a traits manifesto. Journal of Ecology, 102, 275–301.
• Rosado BHP, Mattos EA. de (2017). On the relative importance of CSR ecological strategies and integrative traits to explain species dominance at local scales. Functional Ecology, 31: 1969-1974.
• Winemiller KO, Fitzgerald DB, Bower LM, Pianka ER. (2015) Functional traits, convergent evolution, and periodic tables of niches. Ecology Letters, 18: 737– 751.
• Zhang FP, Yang Y, Yang Q, Zhang W, Brodribb TJ, Hao G, Hu H, Zhang S. (2017) Floral longevity determines the balance between pollination success and flower maintenance. Frontiers in Plant Science, 8:501.
Day 3:
• Cadotte MW, Carscadden K, Mirotchnick N. (2011). Beyond species: functional diversity and the maintenance of ecological processes and services. Journal of Applied Ecology, 48(5), 1079–1087.
• de Bello F, Lavorel S, Díaz S. et al. (2010) Towards an assessment of mutiple ecosystem processes and services via functional traits. Biodiversity Conservation, 19: 2873.
• Grime JP. (1998), Benefits of plant diversity to ecosystems: immediate, filter and founder effects. Journal of Ecology, 86: 902-910.
• Hodgson D, McDonald JL, Hosken DJ. (2015). What do you mean, ‘resilient’? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 30(9), 503–506.
• Lavorel S, Grigulis K, Lamarque P, Colace M, Garden D, Girel J, Pellet G, Douzet R. (2011). Using plant functional traits to understand the landscape distribution of multiple ecosystem services. Journal of Ecology, 99: 135-147.
• Mason NWH, de Bello F, Mouillot D, Pavoine S, Dray S. (2013). A guide for using functional diversity indices to reveal changes in assembly processes along ecological gradients. Journal of Vegetation Science, 24(5), 794–806.
• Mouillot D, Bellwood DR, Baraloto C, Chave J, Galzin R, Harmelin-Vivien M, et al. (2013). Rare Species Support Vulnerable Functions in High-Diversity Ecosystems. PLoS Biology, 11(5): e1001569.
• Petchey OL, Gaston KJ. (2006). Functional diversity: back to basics and looking forward. Ecology Letters, 9(6), 741–758.
• Schleuter D, Daufresne M, Massol F, Argillier C. (2010). A user’ s guide to functional diversity indices. Ecological Monographs, 80(3), 469–484.
• Villéger S, Mason NWH, Mouillot D. (2008). New multidimensional functional diversity indices for a multifaceted framework in functional ecology. Ecology, 89(8), 2290–2301.
Day 4:
• Booth BD, Swanton CJ. (2002) Assembly theory applied to weed communities. Weed Science, 50(1): 2-13.
• Carvajal DE, Loayza AP, Rios RS, Delpiano CA, Squeo FA. (2019). A hyper‐arid environment shapes an inverse pattern of the fast–slow plant economics spectrum for above‐, but not below‐ground resource acquisition strategies. Journal of Ecology 107: 1079– 1092.
• de Bello F, Berg MP, Dias ATC. et al. (2015) On the need for phylogenetic ‘corrections’ in functional trait-based approaches. Folia Geobotanica, 50: 349-357.
• de Paula LF a., Negreiros D, Azevedo LO, Fernandes RL, Stehmann JR, Silveira FaO. (2015). Functional ecology as a missing link for conservation of a resource-limited flora in the Atlantic forest. Biodiversity and Conservation. doi: s10531-015-0904-x
• Drenovsky RE, Grewell BJ, D'Antonio CM, Funk JL, James JJ, Molinari N, et al. (2012). A functional trait perspective on plant invasion. Annals of Botany, 110(1), 141–153.
• Laughlin DC. (2014) Applying trait-based models to achieve functional targets for theory- driven ecological restoration. Ecology Letters, 17: 771– 78.
• Madani, N, Kimball, J.S., Ballantyne, A.P., Affleck, D.L.R., van Bodegom, P.M., Reich, P.B., Kattge, J. et al. (2017) Future global productivity will be affected by plant trait response to climate. Scientific Reports, 8: 2870.
• McGill, B.J., Enquist, B.J., Weiher, E., Westoby, M. (2006) Rebuilding community ecology from functional traits. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 21(4):178-185.
• Pierce, S., Negreiros, D., Cerabolini, B. E. L., & Al, E. (2017). A global method for calculating plant CSR ecological strategies applied across biomes worldwide. Functional Ecology, doi:10.1111/1365-2435.12722.
• Shipley, B., de Bello, F., Cornelissen, J. H. C., Diaz, S., Laliberte, E., Laughlin, D., & Reich, P. B. (2016). Reinforcing foundation stones in trait-based plant ecology. Oecologia, doi: 10.1007/s00442-016-3549-x.
• Sierf, A., Violle, C., Chalmandrier, L., & Al, E. (2015). A global meta-analysis of the relative extent of intraspecific trait variation in plant communities. Ecology Letters, 18, 1406–1419.
• Smith, M. D., & Knapp, A. K. (2003), Dominant species maintain ecosystem function with non‐ random species loss. Ecology Letters, 6: 509-517.
• Violle, C., Enquist, B. J., McGill, B. J., Jiang, L., Albert, C. H., Hulshof, C., et al. (2012). The return of the variance: Intraspecific variability in community ecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 27(4), 244–252.
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