EEB Thesis Defense: Temporal Variation in Functional Traits of Understory Plant Communities Along a Chronosequence in Northern Michigan

Preview: Functional traits vary among species and individuals, making them ideal for elucidating the process of community assembly. One area of functional trait ecology that remains understudied is temporal variation in functional traits, especially in understory forest communities, and its impact on functional diversity. I leveraged an experimental chronosequence at the University of Michigan Biological Station to investigate how functional traits of understory plants vary at three time scales - within the growing season, between two years, and along the chronosequence - and in coordination with environmental changes, species turnover, and intraspecific variation. This project calls attention to the temporal variability of plant communities that goes unnoticed in single time-point studies and highlights the use of chronosequences for studying community assembly.