Niwot plant functional traits, 2008 - 2018.

Globally, human activities are altering environmental conditions
through changes to disturbance regimes, climate, and primary
productivity. Attempts to generalize changes in biodiversity in
response to altered environmental conditions have had mixed success
and the mechanisms that causes differences in responses are poorly
understood. These contingent responses represent one of the largest
obstacles to synthesis in community ecology and global change biology.
Over the past decade, much progress has been made in resolving these
ecological contingencies by shifting from a taxonomic perspective on
community assembly and global change to a focus on functional traits.
Functional traits are any morphological, physiological, or
phenological characteristic of a species linked to fitness and have
proven to be effective for understanding species interactions,
biogeographic processes, and environmental change. Between 2008 and
2018, we measured plant height, specific leaf area, leaf size,
chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance, leaf dry matter content,
and leaf chemical composition (nitrogen, carbon, δ13C, δ15N) on 2689
individual plants from 141 species (not all traits on all individuals
or species). These measurements were collected to capture
intraspecific trait variation among the key habitat types on Niwot
Ridge and to examine how species traits respond to global change in
the ITEX experiment.