Fig. 1: An introduction to trait-based productivity (TBP) theory.
From: Integrating multiple plant functional traits to predict ecosystem productivity
As an analogy to the Production Ecology Equation, we use emergent thinking to elucidate the formation of productivity at the ecosystem level, applying several simple and powerful parameters to predict ecosystem productivity (gross primary productivity, GPP). Here, environmental factors refers to energy input, representing the total supply of resources in an ecosystem; as plant community traits, Traitquantity represents resource uptake and carbon fixation, and Traitefficiency represents the intrinsic efficiency of resource utilization and production; and growing season length represents the period of CO2 absorption by the ecosystem. These three key parameters, reflecting ecosystem attributes, jointly determine ecosystem productivity. We extend this analogous multiplicative framework via structural equation modeling, to distinguish direct and indirect effects. In essence, trait-based productivity (TBP) theory scales traits to the community level, then uses plant community traits to predict GPP.
