Leveraging functional diversity in farm fields for sustainability

The latest issue of Journal of Applied Ecology includes a Special Feature, Functional traits in agroecology. To accompany the feature, we’re introducing a series of blog posts from the authors themselves. The first of these comes from Jennifer Blesh and discusses her article, Functional traits in cover crop mixtures: Biological nitrogen fixation and multifunctionality. Global climate, energy, and water crises pose immense challenges for agricultural systems. … Continue reading Leveraging functional diversity in farm fields for sustainability

A common currency for connecting the goals of restoration: plant traits can help us understand how plant communities form and help ecosystems function

For the latest post in our Toward prediction in the restoration of biodiversity series, Chad Zirbel turns to tallgrass prairies to examine the role of plant traits in predicting restoration outcomes. Chad and colleagues’ paper, Plant functional traits and environmental conditions shape community assembly and ecosystem functioning during restoration, is available in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Two of the major goals of restoration are … Continue reading A common currency for connecting the goals of restoration: plant traits can help us understand how plant communities form and help ecosystems function