The role of plant traits in determining trade-offs among ecosystem services across Mediterranean-type ecosystems: integrating empirical and modelling work
Participants: Britta Tietjen, Sebastian Fiedler, Cristina Branquinho, Lohengrin Cavieres, Elsa Cleland, Jordi Cortina-Segarra, Jennifer Holm, Jörn Pagel, Michael Perring, Natalia Rodríguez Ramírez, Paloma Ruiz-Benito, Enrique Valencia
In January 2019 we hosted a DFG funded workshop at the Freie Universität Berlin aiming at bringing together a group of researchers from across the world with expertise on different Mediterranean-type ecosystems, different approaches (e.g. empirical vs. modelling) and different stages of their career that are all interested in the link between plant traits and ecosystem functioning. Represented were researchers with expertise on Mediterranean-type ecosystems in California, Chile, France, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Western Australia. We discussed, which are the most pressing questions if we want to synthesize trait impacts across Mediterranean-type ecosystems on resilient multifunctionality and how we can address these questions with the simulation model ModEST, developed in our group, and data. We ended the workshop with a very inspiring guided tour through the greenhouses of our Botanical Garden.
