D3-ForScale

Global change is causing extensive changes in terrestrial ecosystems, driving unprecedented redistribution of species and organisms traits. Woody plants species may shift their ranges at slower rates than other organisms , but can partially adjust their leaf chemical-physical structure as a short-term response to environmental changes. These traits are involved in major eco-physiological processes, and often referred to as functional traits, proxies for ecological processes from communities structure to global land-surface biogeochemical cycles. Processes driving ecological systems are also inherently interconnected across scales. Local interactions can affect microclimate and scale up to influence species co-occurrence; large scale gradients in climate can affect realized niches within species ranges, inducing plastical adjust in trees physiology. Disentangling the influence of biological and environmental drivers by explicitly modeling cross-scale mechanisms may be fundamental to better understand terrestrial ecosystems.