Plant Functional Types in relation to disturbance and land use: Introduction

Classification of plants according to life-history traits has a long tradition in plant ecology (Weiher et al. 1999). A variety of names have been given to different classifications (e.g. life forms (Raunkiaer 1937), strategies (Grime 2001) and functional types (McIntyre et al. 1999a), and this has resulted in groupings being based on different individual traits or groups of co-occurring traits (‘syndromes’). However, common to all life-history trait classifications has been the search for a functional description of the vegetation based on plant attributes that show a common response to the environment, independent of phylogeny. Physiological and demographic constraints on plant and population growth, together with the trade-off structure of life-history traits, result in predictable changes in groups of traits or ‘functional traits’ (PFT) along environmental and disturbance gradients (Grime et al. 1997). The repeatable patterns in the changes of plant functional traits along gradients are observed across continents; consequently, life-history classifications can be used for comparisons and predictions between regions and at global scales. Disturbance is one of the key factors that shape the vegetation, and attributes that confer success under disturbance are central in early life-history trait classifications (e.g. r-K strategy continuum and Grime’s (2001) C-S-R strategies). Present land-use changes result in profound changes in disturbance regimes, with pronounced changes in systems where grazing and fire are major factors. Although a few traits have a general association with responses to disturbance (e.g. short life span, high dispersal capacity), more detailed studies reveal that (1) plant attributes are specific to particular types of disturbance (Grime 2001), (2) they respond to disturbance regime characteristics (e.g. severity, spatial extent and recurrence frequency) (Denslow 1980), and (3) there is usually more than one syndrome or ‘strategy’ for survival under any given condition (Cunningham et al. 1999; Westoby et al. 2002). The challenges to achieve powerful predictive models of plant-trait responses to changes in disturbance regimes and land use include Plant Functional Types in relation to disturbance and land use: Introduction

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