ABSTRACT
Plant functional traits are powerful tools to identify generic responses of biodiversity and ecosystem function to environmental change and to understand their underlying mechanisms (Chapin et al., 2000; review by Lavorel et al., 2007). Considerable research has gone into the identifi cation of traits relevant to the response of species
and various community types to factors such as climate (Reich et al., 1999; Wright et al., 2005), atmospheric CO2 concentration (Poorter and Pérez-Soba, 2002), grazing (Díaz et al., 2007), or fertilization (Suding et al., 2005). More recently, studies have begun to focus on traits that affect ecosystem functions, such as primary productivity (Reich et al., 1992; Garnier et al., 2004; Hodgson et al., 2005; Vile et al., 2006), litter decomposition (Cornelissen
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................107 Methods .......................................................................................................................................................................108
