Plant functional traits and environmental conditions shape community assembly and ecosystem functioning during restoration

Recovering biological diversity and ecosystem functioning are primary objectives of ecological restoration, yet these outcomes are often unpredictable. Assessments based on functional traits may help with interpreting variability in both community composition and ecosystem functioning because of their mechanistic and generalizable nature. This promise remains poorly realized, however, because tests linking environmental conditions, functional traits, and ecosystem functioning in restoration are rare. Here, we provide such a test through what is to our knowledge the first empirical application of the ‘response–effect trait framework’ to restoration. This framework provides a trait-based bridge between community assembly and ecosystem functioning by describing how species respond to environmental conditions based on traits and how the traits of species affect ecosystem functioning. Our study took place across 29 prairies restored from former agricultural fields in southwestern Michigan....