Trait-Based Approaches to Plankton Ecology & Evolution

Christopher KLAUSMEIER

Trait-based approaches are increasingly seen as a way to reduce the complexity of ecological communities and to incorporate functional diversity in ecosystem models. In this talk I will present Elena Litchman's and my lab's work applying trait-based ideas to marine and freshwater plankton communities. First, I will describe empirical patterns in the resource utilization and thermal traits we found using meta-analyses of published eco-physiological traits. Second, I will discuss trait-based approaches to modeling ecological and eco-evolutionary dynamics and how they can enhance our understanding of community structure in heterogeneous environments. Finally, I will describe recent theory on how local selection and immigration from the regional species pool interact to determine distribution of commonness and rarity in ecological communities and an experimental test.

Recent publications:

Edwards KF, Kremer CT, Miller ET, Osmond MM, Litchman E, Klausmeier CA. 2019. Evolutionarily stable communities: a framework for understanding the role of trait evolution in the maintenance of diversity. Ecology Letters 21: 1853–1868

Koffel T, Massol F, Daufresne T, Klausmeier CA. Plant strategies along resource gradients. American Naturalist 192: 360–378

Kremer CT, Klausmeier CA. Species packing in eco-evolutionary models of seasonally fluctuating environments. Ecology Letters 20: 1158–1168

klausme1@msu.edu