Post‐fire development of faunal habitat depends on plant regeneration traits

The concept that vegetation structure (and faunal habitat) develops predictably with time since fire has been central to understanding the relationship between fire and fauna. However, because plants regenerate after fire in different ways (e.g. resprouting from above‐ground stems vs. underground lignotubers), use of simple categories based on time since fire might not adequately represent post‐fire habitat development in all ecosystems. We tested the hypothesis that the post‐fire development of faunal habitat structure differs between ecosystems, depending on fire regeneration traits of the dominant canopy trees. We measured 12 habitat components at sites in foothill forests (n = 38), heathy woodlands (n = 38) and mallee woodlands (n = 98) in Victoria, Australia, and used generalised additive models to predict changes in each variable with time since fire. A greater percentage of faunal habitat variables responded significantly to time since fire in mallee woodlands, where fires typically are stand‐replacing, than in foothill forests and heathy woodlands, where canopy tree stems generally persist through fire. In the ecosystem with the highest proportion of epicormic resprouters (foothill forests), only ground cover and understorey vegetation responded significantly to time since fire, compared with all but one variable in the ecosystem dominated by basal resprouters (mallee woodlands). These differences between ecosystems in the post‐fire development of key habitat components suggest there may also be fundamental differences in the role of fire in shaping the distribution of fauna. If so, this challenges the way in which many fire‐prone ecosystems currently are categorised and managed, especially the level of dependence on time since fire and other temporal surrogates such as age‐classes and successional states. Where time since fire is a poor surrogate for habitat structural development, additional complexity (e.g. fire severity, topography and prior land‐use history) could better capture processes that determine faunal occurrence in fire‐prone ecosystems.     

Leaf size of woody dicots predicts ecosystem primary productivity

A key challenge in ecology is to understand the relationships between organismal traits and ecosystem processes. Here, with a novel dataset of leaf length and width for 10 480 woody dicots in China and 2374 in North America, we show that the variation in community mean leaf size is highly correlated with the variation in climate and ecosystem primary productivity, independent of plant life form. These relationships likely reflect how natural selection modifies leaf size across varying climates in conjunction with how climate influences canopy total leaf area. We find that the leaf size?primary productivity functions based on the Chinese dataset can predict productivity in North America and vice‐versa. In addition to advancing understanding of the relationship between a climate‐driven trait and ecosystem functioning, our findings suggest that leaf size can also be a promising tool in palaeoecology for scaling from fossil leaves to palaeo‐primary productivity of woody ecosystems.     

Fungal functional ecology: bringing a trait‐based approach to plant‐associated fungi

Fungi play many essential roles in ecosystems. They facilitate plant access to nutrients and water, serve as decay agents that cycle carbon and nutrients through the soil, water and atmosphere, and are major regulators of macro‐organismal populations. Although technological advances are improving the detection and identification of fungi, there still exist key gaps in our ecological knowledge of this kingdom, especially related to function . Trait‐based approaches have been instrumental in strengthening our understanding of plant functional ecology and, as such, provide excellent models for deepening our understanding of fungal functional ecology in ways that complement insights gained from traditional and ‐omics‐based techniques. In this review, we synthesize current knowledge of fungal functional ecology, taxonomy and systematics and introduce a novel database of fungal functional traits (Fun^Fun). Fun^Fun is built to interface with other databases to explore and predict how fungal functional diversity varies by taxonomy, guild, and other evolutionary or ecological grouping variables. To highlight how a quantitative trait‐based approach can provide new insights, we describe multiple targeted examples and end by suggesting next steps in the rapidly growing field of fungal functional ecology.     

A practical guide to measuring functional indicators and traits in biocrusts

Biocrusts are multifunctional communities that are increasingly being used to restore degraded or damaged ecosystems. Concurrently, restoration science is shifting away from the use of purely structural metrics, such as relative abundance, to more functional approaches. Although biocrust restoration technology is advancing, there is a lack of readily available information on how to monitor biocrust functioning and set appropriate restoration goals. We therefore compiled a selection of 22 functional indicators that can be used to monitor biocrust functions, such as CO₂ exchange as an indicator of productivity or soil aggregate stability as a proxy for erosion resistance. We describe the functional importance of each indicator and the available protocols with which it may be measured. The majority of indicators can be measured as a functional trait of species by using patches of biocrust or cultures that contain only one species. Practitioners wishing to track the multifunctionality of an entire biocrust community would be advised to choose one indicator from each broad functional group (erosion resistance, nutrient accumulation, productivity, energy balance, hydrology), whereas a targeted approach would be more appropriate for projects with a key function of interest. Because predisturbance data are rarely available for biocrust functions, restoration goals can be based on a closely analogous site, literature values, or an expert elicitation process. Finally, we advocate for the establishment of a global trait database for biocrusts, which would reduce the damage resulting from repeated sampling, and provide a wealth of future research opportunities.