Through the maze of functional diversity

Speaker: Dr. Stefano Mammola - IRSA-CNR (Verbania)

Abstract
The use of functional diversity analyses in ecology has grown exponentially over the past two decades, broadening our understanding of biological diversity and its change across space and time. Virtually all ecological sub-disciplines recognise the critical value of looking at species and communities from a functional lens, and this has led to a proliferation of approaches for estimating contrasting dimensions of functional diversity. Albeit this broad availability of methods and metrics is fuelling gigantic leaps forward in our understanding of ecosystem functionality, it has been pointed out that it is also ‘[...] causing much confusion in selecting appropriate methods for specific questions’. The goal of this seminar is to offer a roadmap to confidently approaching functional diversity analyses both theoretically and practically.

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