|
Symposium
23: Comparative plant ecology as a tool for integrating across scales
Sponsored
by the Annals of Botany
Friday,
August 12, 8 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 517b, Level 5, Palais
des congrès de Montréal
Organizer:
Bill Shipley (Bill.Shipley@Usherbrooke.ca)
Description: The
interaction between a plant and its environment is mediated by its
morphological, phonological, and physiological traits. Comparative (or
“functional”) plant ecology studies the relationships between such
functional traits and environmental gradients in an interspecific context. Since
many aspects of plant population, community, and ecosystem ecology are
determined by the ways in which individuals interact with each other and with
their physical environment, the methods and results of comparative plant ecology
might serve as a tool to integrate the different organizational scales of plant
ecology. The purpose of this symposium is to explore the degree to which this is
true, to identify aspects of plant ecology which are impervious to the tools of
comparative plant ecology, and finally to suggest what needs to be done to move
the field forward.
|
