Functional diversity in plant communities: Theory and analysis methods

Plant functional diversity in community has become a key point in ecology studies recently. The development of species functional diversity was reviewed in the present work. Based on the former original research papers and reviews, we discussed the concept and connotation and put forward a new definition of functional diversity that refers to the change of species functions in communities, and species functions are reflected by functional traits during the completion of their life histories. The ecological process in ecosystems or ecosystem function is closely related to functional diversity. The present quantitative methods for functional diversity analysis were reviewed and their validity needs to be evaluated by more application studies, and new effective methods need to be developed. The questions and problems in functional diversity studies were discussed and will be solved in the future research, and the perspectives for functional diversity research were also discussed in this review. Key words : Functional diversity, community structure, ecosystem function, quantitative methodology, ecology theory.

• Publication year

  2012

• Venue

  African Journal of Biotechnology

• Publication date

  2012-01-16

• Fields of study

  Biology, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.5897/AJB11.3122
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Applied Ecology

  2019cited by this paper
• Factors affecting species diversity of plant communities and the restoration process in the loess area of China.

  2010cited by this paper
• A comparison of self-organizing feature map clustering with TWINSPAN and fuzzy C-means clustering in the analysis of woodland communities in the Guancen Mts, China

  2010cited by this paper
• Functional diversity and its research method

  2010cited by this paper
• Two methods for detecting landscape associations based on a landscape map

  2010cited by this paper
• Diversity effects in early- and mid-successional species pools along a nitrogen gradient.

  2009cited by this paper
• Biodiversity in a complex world: consolidation and progress in functional biodiversity research.

  2009influential reference
• Using Phylogenetic, Functional and Trait Diversity to Understand Patterns of Plant Community Productivity

  2009cited by this paper
• Partitioning of functional diversity reveals the scale and extent of trait convergence and divergence

  2009cited by this paper
• Scaling environmental change through the community‐level: a trait‐based response‐and‐effect framework for plants

  2008influential reference
• Trait-Based Community Ecology of Phytoplankton

  2008cited by this paper
• Fuzzy SOFM and its Application to the Classification of Plant Communities in the Taihang Mountains of China

  2008cited by this paper
• Quantifying functional diversity with graph-theoretical measures: advantages and pitfalls

  2008influential reference
• A comparison of SOFM ordination with DCA and PCA in gradient analysis of plant communities in the midst of Taihang Mountains, China

  2008cited by this paper
• Scaling environmental change through the community-level: a trait-based response-and-effect framework for plants

  2008cited by this paper
• Assessing functional diversity in the field - methodology matters!

  2007cited by this paper
• A trait-based approach to community assembly: partitioning of species trait values into within- and among-community components.

  2007cited by this paper
• Diversity and Composition of Plant Functional Groups in Mountain Forests of the Lishan Nature Reserve, North China

  2007cited by this paper
• Importance of species abundance for assessment of trait composition: an example based on pollinator communities

  2007cited by this paper
• Quantifying and interpreting functional diversity of natural communities: practical considerations matter

  2006cited by this paper
• On dendrogram-based measures of functional diversity

  2006cited by this paper
• Variations in species and functional plant diversity along climatic and grazing gradients

  2006cited by this paper
• A note on functional diversity measures

  2005cited by this paper
• Succession analysis of plant communities in abandoned croplands in the eastern Loess Plateau of China

  2005cited by this paper
• Influence of enhanced malate dehydrogenase expression by alfalfa on diversity of rhizobacteria and soil nutrient availability

  2003cited by this paper
• An index of functional diversity

  2003cited by this paper
• ECOLOGICAL STRATEGIES : Some Leading Dimensions of Variation Between Species

  2002cited by this paper
• DISENTANGLING THE IMPACTS OF DIVERSITY ON ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING IN COMBINATORIAL EXPERIMENTS

  2002cited by this paper
• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges

  2001cited by this paper
• Diversity and Productivity in a Long-Term Grassland Experiment

  2001cited by this paper
• Vive la différence: plant functional diversity matters to ecosystem processes

  2001influential reference
• Original Articles: Plant Attribute Diversity, Resilience, and Ecosystem Function: The Nature and Significance of Dominant and Minor Species

  1999cited by this paper
• The Influence of Functional Diversity and Composition on Ecosystem Processes

  1997cited by this paper
• A functional analysis of a limestone grassland community

  1996cited by this paper
• Diversity and dissimilarity coefficients: A unified approach☆

  1982cited by this paper
• Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species

  1981cited by this paper
• Fluctuations of Animal Populations and a Measure of Community Stability

  1955cited by this paper

• Responses of Soil Microbial Community to Rocky Desertification Succession and Their Relationships With Plant Functional Diversity in Southwest China Karst Ecosystem

  2026cites this paper
• Determining the value of different wavelength ranges of non-imaging hyperspectral reflectance to estimate carotenoid content using the PROSPECT-5 model

  2024cites this paper
• Functional Restoration of Desertified, Water-Limited Ecosystems: The Israel Desert Experience

  2023cites this paper
• Plant functional traits best explain invasive species’ performance within a dynamic ecosystem - A review.

  2022cites this paper
• Response of Leaf Functional Traits of Landscape Plants to Urban Green Space Environment in Lanzhou, China

  2022cites this paper
• Effects of functional diversity and salinization on zooplankton productivity: an experimental approach

  2020cites this paper
• Functional diversity of habitat formers declines scale-dependently across an environmental stress gradient

  2020cites this paper
• Functional diversity research of forest communities in the Xiaowutai Mountain National Nature Reserve, Hebei

  2018cites this paper
• Assessing sensitivities of marine areas to stressors based on biological traits

  2018cites this paper
• The community ecology of herbaceous vegetation in a semi-arid sodic savanna

  2018cites this paper
• Partitioning the functional variation of tree seedlings during secondary succession in a tropical lowland rainforest

  2018cites this paper
• Land use effects on the functional structure of aquatic insect communities in Neotropical streams

  2017cites this paper
• Plant functional types differ between the grassland and savanna biomes along an agro-ecosystem disturbance gradient in South Africa

  2017cites this paper
• The PCA index for measuring functional diversity and its application to Juglans mandshurica communities in the Beijing mountains, China

  2017cites this paper
• Fuzzy Index and Self-Organizing Feature Map Index for Measuring Functional Diversity Applied to Acanthopanax Senticosus Communities

  2016cites this paper
• Application of species, phylogenetic and functional diversity to the evaluation on the effects of ecological restoration on biodiversity

  2016cites this paper
• Vegetation diversity of ecological plant groups in relation to environmental factors on the southern slopes of Karkas Mountain (Natanz, Iran)

  2016cites this paper
• Herbaceous species diversity, redundancy and resilience of Mopaneveld across different land-uses

  2016influential citation
• Quantitative remote sensing of forest leaf functional traits : leaf dry matter content and specific leaf area

  2016cites this paper
• Estimating leaf functional traits by inversion of PROSPECT: Assessing leaf dry matter content and specific leaf area in mixed mountainous forest

  2016cites this paper
• Functional diversity of Cercidiphyllum japonicum, communities in the Shennongjia Reserve, central China

  2015cites this paper
• Variation of plant functional diversity along a disturbance gradient in mountain meadows of the Donglingshan reserve, Beijing, China

  2015cites this paper
• PROSPECT INVERSION FOR INDIRECT ESTIMATION OF LEAF DRY MATTER CONTENT AND SPECIFIC LEAF AREA

  2015cites this paper
• Efeito de borda na estrutura, diversidade e fenologia de floresta tropical estacional submontana

  2014cites this paper
• Biodiversity evaluation of rangelands ecosystems to achieve sustainable development (case study: Dastgerd watersed, Birjand, Iran)

  2014cites this paper
• How plant diversity features change across ecological species groups? A case study of a temperate deciduous forest in northern Iran

  2014cites this paper
• Pattern of functional diversity along an altitudinal gradient in the Baihua Mountain Reserve of Beijing, China

  2014cites this paper
• An Index for Measuring Functional Diversity in Plant Communities Based on Neural Network Theory

  2013influential citation
• FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION OF PHELLODENDRON AMURENSE COMMUNITIES IN THE DONGLING MOUNTAIN OF BEIJING, CHINA

  2013cites this paper
• Evaluation of nine distance-based measures of functional diversity applied to forest communities

  2012cites this paper