[Back to Detailed Agenda]
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| Chair: Michael Goulden
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Discussion Questions:
- What are the most important future directions in this area for the NASA research program?
- How can we more clearly name and articulate this area of research ("physiology and functional types" is not well received)?
- How effective are our current research investments in this area? Should be we doing more or less? Should there be more or less focus? How tied to the prospects for a future space mission should these investments be?
- What results from this area feed into NASA's Applied Sciences program? How can this transition be improved/strengthened?
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--- Please forward any additional comments to the relevant Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. ---
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Great discussion yesterday! I wanted to post the citation of the review article on plant functional types I mentioned during the discussion that I feel is critical to an understanding of how the ecological community approaches the question of definining and testing the concept of plant functional types:
Duckworth J.C.; Kent M.; Ramsay P.M. 2000. Plant functional types: an alternative to taxonomic plant community description in biogeography?
Progress in physical geography 24(4):515-542.
Between the discussions and the posters, as well as the wealth of articles in the literature, "PFT" is an extremely poorly defined term. It gets used synonymously with "biome", "plant characteristics" (be it structural, physiological, or biochemical), "lifeform", and many other related concepts. As I mentioned in the discussion, I like the idea of defining a PFT as a characteristic of an individual plant, and the grouping of plants as defined by either their response to some sort of abiotic or biotic factor, or their effect on biological or physical systems, or a combination of both. In this context, a PFT *must* be experimentally (or otherwise) demonstrated, not merely assumed.
– submitted by Jonathan Greenberg at 2006-08-23 06:56:32 |
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