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1. Functional trait trade-offs define plant population stability across different biomes

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0344  

   Conti, Luisa; Valencia, Enrique; Galland, Thomas; Götzenberger, Lars; Lepš, Jan; E-Vojtkó, Anna; Carmona, Carlos P.; Májeková, Maria; Danihelka, Jiří; Dengler, Jürgen; et al (June 2023, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   Ecological theory posits that temporal stability patterns in plant populations are associated with differences in species' ecological strategies. However, empirical evidence is lacking about which traits, or trade-offs, underlie species stability, especially across different biomes. We compiled a worldwide collection of long-term permanent vegetation records (greater than 7000 plots from 78 datasets) from a large range of habitats which we combined with existing trait databases. We tested whether the observed inter-annual variability in species abundance (coefficient of variation) was related to multiple individual traits. We found that populations with greater leaf dry matter content and seed mass were more stable over time. Despite the variability explained by these traits being low, their effect was consistent across different datasets. Other traits played a significant, albeit weaker, role in species stability, and the inclusion of multi-variate axes or phylogeny did not substantially modify nor improve predictions. These results provide empirical evidence and highlight the relevance of specific ecological trade-offs, i.e. in different resource-use and dispersal strategies, for plant populations stability across multiple biomes. Further research is, however, necessary to integrate and evaluate the role of other specific traits, often not available in databases, and intraspecific trait variability in modulating species stability. 

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2. Interactive exploration of design trade-offs

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3197517.3201385  

   Schulz, Adriana; Wang, Harrison; Crinspun, Eitan; Solomon, Justin; Matusik, Wojciech (July 2018, ACM Transactions on Graphics)
3. Environmental trade-offs for sustainable irrigation.

   McDermid, S. S. (September 2021, Nature geoscience)

   null (Ed.)
4. Trade-Offs (and Constraints) in Organismal Biology

   https://doi.org/10.1086/717897  

   Garland, Theodore; Downs, Cynthia J.; Ives, Anthony R. (January 2022, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology)
5. Demographic trade-offs predict tropical forest dynamics

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz4797  

   Rüger, Nadja; Condit, Richard; Dent, Daisy H.; DeWalt, Saara J.; Hubbell, Stephen P.; Lichstein, Jeremy W.; Lopez, Omar R.; Wirth, Christian; Farrior, Caroline E. (April 2020, Science)

   Understanding tropical forest dynamics and planning for their sustainable management require efficient, yet accurate, predictions of the joint dynamics of hundreds of tree species. With increasing information on tropical tree life histories, our predictive understanding is no longer limited by species data but by the ability of existing models to make use of it. Using a demographic forest model, we show that the basal area and compositional changes during forest succession in a neotropical forest can be accurately predicted by representing tropical tree diversity (hundreds of species) with only five functional groups spanning two essential trade-offs—the growth-survival and stature-recruitment trade-offs. This data-driven modeling framework substantially improves our ability to predict consequences of anthropogenic impacts on tropical forests. 

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