title: Improving plant functional groups for dynamic models of biodiversity: at the crossroads between functional and community ecology.
abstract: The pace of on-going climate change calls for reliable plant biodiversity scenarios. Traditional dynamic vegetation models use plant functional types that are summarized to such an extent that they become meaningless for biodiversity scenarios. Hybrid dynamic vegetation models of intermediate complexity (hybrid-DVMs) have recently been developed to address this issue. These models, at the crossroads between phenomenological and process-based models, are able to involve an intermediate number of well-chosen plant functional groups (PFGs). The challenge is to build meaningful PFGs that are representative of plant biodiversity, and consistent with the parameters and processes of hybrid-DVMs. Here, we propose and test a framework based on few selected traits to define a limited number of PFGs, which are both representative of the diversity (functional and taxonomic) of the flora in the Ecrins National Park, and adapted to hybrid-DVMs. This new classification scheme, together with recent advances in vegetation modeling, constitutes a step forward for mechanistic biodiversity modeling.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Boulangeat
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Isabelle
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pauline
authors.affiliation: Conservatoire Botanique National Alpin, Domaine de Charance, 05000 Gap, France.
authors.forename: Abdulhak
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sylvain
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Douzet
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Roland
authors.affiliation: Conservatoire Botanique National Alpin, Domaine de Charance, 05000 Gap, France.
authors.forename: Garraud
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Luc
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Lavergne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sébastien
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Lavorel
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sandra
authors.affiliation: Conservatoire Botanique National Alpin, Domaine de Charance, 05000 Gap, France.
authors.forename: Van Es
authors.initials: VE
authors.lastname: Jérémie
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Bâtiment Biophore, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Vittoz
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pascal
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Thuiller
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wilfried
keywords: biodiversity scenarios; dynamic vegetation model; emergent groups; functional diversity; functional traits; hybrid model; plant functional groups; plant functional types