SYMP 14 - Linking Functional Traits to Species Coexistence in Changing Environments

Wednesday, August 9, 2017: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Portland Blrm 252, Oregon Convention Center
Organizer:
Nathan J. B. Kraft, University of California, Los Angeles
Co-organizer:
Jonathan Levine, Institut f. Integrative Biologie
Moderator:
Jonathan Levine, Institut f. Integrative Biologie
Functional trait-based approaches to community ecology have seen widespread adoption in recent years, in part because they promise to offer a predictive framework from which to project species and community responses to ongoing environmental changes. While trait based approaches have seen considerable success in helping to understand species turnover along abiotic gradients, the theoretical and empirical links between functional traits, local species interactions, and species coexistence at the local scale have seen much less development, despite widespread interest in the field. The goal of this symposium is to focus discussion from a diverse group of speakers on the challenge of predicting species coexistence from functional traits. This will include discussions of which kinds of traits might matter for species coexistence, how intraspecific trait variation might alter coexistence dynamics, and what the consequences of these relationships are for communities and ecosystems. Our symposium is specifically designed to foster synthesis between emerging theory in this area and empirical work using theory to guide expectations for how traits predict coexistence. Our hope is that progress will better help researchers face the challenge of predicting shifts in community structure and composition in a changing world.
1:30 PM
 Competitive assembly of mixtures via fitness landscapes in trait space
Mark Westoby, Macquarie University; Daniel S. Falster, Macquarie University
2:30 PM
 The effects of intraspecific trait variation on species coexistence
Simon P. Hart, ETH Zurich; Sebastian J. Schreiber, University of California; Jonathan M. Levine, ETH Zurich
3:00 PM
3:10 PM
 Understanding trait-based coexistence from ecological first principles
Caroline Farrior, University of Texas at Austin
3:40 PM
 One trait fits all? Predicting coexistence of annual plants across spatial and temporal scales
Nathan J. B. Kraft, University of California, Los Angeles; Gaurav S. Kandlikar, University of California, Los Angeles; Andrew R. Kleinhesselink, University of California, Los Angeles; Oscar Godoy, Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS); Jonathan M. Levine, ETH Zurich
4:10 PM
 Trait-based perspectives on species coexistence in variable environments
Christopher A. Klausmeier, Michigan State University; Colin T. Kremer, Yale University; Elizabeth T. Miller, University of Oregon
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