Mason Heberling and Norman Mason, PhD student and visiting Professor, will conduct a conference on Friday, 14th at 1:30 PM (Amphitheatre Lamarck – Pôle Santé Université de Picardie Jules Verne):

Mason Heberling (Department of Biology, Syracuse University, Life Sciences Complex, New York, USA): « Plant resource-use efficiency and forest invasions in the Northeastern United States »
Norman Mason (Landcare Research, Ecosystems and Global change, Hamilton, New Zealand): « What function does functional trait research serve? » Functional traits and functional trait diversity have dual roles as predictors of ecosystem function and indicators of the processes driving species turnover between communities. While there is a rapidly expanding literature using functional traits to answer ecological questions, the knowledge generated by this literature seems to play a limited role in decision making by conservation and agricultural managers. In this presentation I will briefly review some of the existing functional trait literature and look at the potential for resulting knowledge to be applied in managing natural and agricultural ecosystems. I will then consider how we can design future functional trait research to improve the chance its findings will be applied by managers.