From Plant Traits to Vegetation Structure

Plant community ecology has traditionally taken a taxonomical approach based on population dynamics. This book contrasts such an approach with a trait-based approach.

After reviewing both approaches, the book then explains how models based on the Maximum Entropy Formalism can be used to predict the relative abundance of different species from a potential species pool. It then goes on to show how the trait constraints, upon which the model is based, are necessary consequences of natural selection and population dynamics. The final sections of the book extend the discussion to macroecological patterns of species abundance and concludes with some outstanding unresolved questions.

Written for advanced undergraduates, graduates and researchers in plant ecology, this book demonstrates how a trait-based approach, can explain how the principle of natural selection and quantitative genetics can be combined with maximum entropy methods to explain and predict the structure of plant communities.

Bill Shipley
Hardcover 296 pages, 1 fig, 9 tables.