On Monday 17th November there will be an intensive 1-day research course offered, open to interested researchers and ECR and HDR.

During the remainder of the week working group participants will work towards performing a quantitative global meta-analysis of relationships between plant traits and environmental conditions in wetlands.

The understanding, and more importantly the quantification and prediction, of global patterns in plant traits have become major themes in research on plant ecology and vegetation functioning (McGill et al. 2006; Westoby and Wright 2006). Plant trait patterns have been linked to climate, nutrient and water availabilities, including drought (e.g. Reich et al. 1999, Wright et al. 2004). Traits such as resistance to cavitation, stomatal closure upon excess transpiration demands and corresponding leaf trait adaptations in low rainfall regimes have received considerable attention (Tyree and Ewers 1991; Hacke and Sperry 2001). In contrast, cross-continental scale patterns in plant adaptations to wetland conditions have received little attention. This is surprising for two reasons:
1) Wetlands are widespread and occupy large areas around the globe, e.g. in Canada, Southeastern U.S.A., Northern Europe and Russia in the Northern Hemisphere and in parts of Chili, Argentina, Australia and New-Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere. Moreover, wetlands are locally important in numerous regions of the world, including Australia. The importance of wetlands merits an in-depth understanding of plant trait selection in these conditions.
2) Research on plant physiological adaptations to waterlogging and (partial) submergence is traditionally a stronghold in ecophysiology. The genetic and hormonal signaling in response to wetland conditions is well-understood for various key species (Jackson and Armstrong 1999; Voesenek et al. 2004). Yet, results of ecophysiological research have never been compiled and analysed for global patterns in wetland traits. As such, it is poorly understood how different drivers contribute to wetland traits on a global scale.

Last Updated September 2008