Journal
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 31, Issue 6, Pages 419-428Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.02.012
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Macquarie University
- Australian Research Council
- Villum Fonden [00010114] Funding Source: researchfish
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Division Of Ocean Sciences [1323822] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Coral reefs are biologically diverse and ecologically complex ecosystems constructed by stony corals. Despite decades of research, basic coral population biology and community ecology questions remain. Quantifying trait variation among species can help resolve these questions, but progress has been hampered by a paucity of trait data for the many, often rare, species and by a reliance on nonquantitative approaches. Therefore, we propose filling data gaps by prioritizing traits that are easy to measure, estimating key traits for species with missing data, and identifying 'supertraits' that capture a large amount of variation for a range of biological and ecological processes. Such an approach can accelerate our understanding of coral ecology and our ability to protect critically threatened global ecosystems.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available