Plant Functional Types

When predicting the effects of changing climate and carbon dioxide on plants at the global scale there is a major stumbling block--we have very little information in many cases none about how plants will respond in the future. In order to circumvent this problem and until more information on species accumulates we reduce the diversity of species to a diversity of functions and structures. The structures may be trees shrubs herbs and grasses. The functions may be types of photosynthetic processes the capacity to minimize water loss and varying the timing of growth. This book describes approaches and methods for defining these functional types in ways that maximize our potential to predict accurately the responses of real vegetation with real species diversity. This book will be useful to those interested in botany ecology and environmental science.