Plant Functional Biodiversity

我们已经进入了“人类世”：在人类活动的推动下，地球上第六大物种灭绝。然而，我们无法预测生物多样性的变化以及这些变化对生态系统功能的影响。此外，这些变化远远超出了我们监测它们的能力，这使得我们很难优先考虑我们的保护行动。作为加拿大植物功能生物多样性研究主席，Etienne Laliberté和他的研究团队正在应对这两个关键挑战。他们试图通过研究植物在不断变化的环境中的形态和生理适应，来更好地理解和预测植物生物多样性的变化及其在生态系统水平上的相应后果。为了实现这一点，Laliberté和IS团队开发了一种新兴的、改变范式的方法：使用无人驾驶飞行器(UAV)的“空中生态表现学”。这种方法不仅有可能改变植物功能生态学和生物多样性监测，使植物表型及其对整个景观适宜性的影响的研究成为可能，而且也是一种将生物体水平的过程扩展到全球范围生物圈功能的有希望的方式。这项研究也让我们了解植物物种如何通过改变叶片物候来适应气候变暖。通过揭示植物功能性状、物候、环境条件及其对植物适宜性的影响之间的联系，这项研究将改进植物物种分布模型。这项研究将帮助我们设计更好的基于自然的气候变化解决方案，这些方案对生物多样性有共同的好处。它还将为建立一个基于植物功能特征遥感的全球植物生物多样性观测站铺平道路。

We have entered the "Anthropocene": a period characterized by the Earth's sixth major species extinction, driven by human activities. However, we are ill-equipped to predict changes in biodiversity and the consequences of those changes for ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, these changes greatly outpace our ability to monitor them, which makes it difficult to prioritize our conservation actions.As Canada Research Chair in Plant Functional Biodiversity, Etienne Laliberté and his research team are tackling these two key challenges. They are trying to better understand and predict changes in plant biodiversity and the corresponding consequences at the ecosystem level by studying the morphological and physiological adaptations of plants - called "functional traits" - in changing environments.To achieve this, Laliberté and is team develop an emerging, paradigm-shifting approach: "airborne eco-phenomics", using unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs). This approach not only has the potential to transform plant functional ecology and biodiversity monitoring by allowing the study of plant phenotypes and their consequences for fitness over entire landscapes, but is also a promising way to scale organism-level processes to global scale biosphere functioning. It also allows us to understand how plant species are adapting, via changing leaf phenology, to a warming climate.By unravelling the links between plant functional traits, phenology, environmental conditions and their consequences for plant fitness, this research will this research will improve plant species distribution models. The resaerch will help us design better nature-based solutions to climate change that have co-benefits for biodiversity. It will also pave the way for the creation of a global plant biodiversity observatory based on remote sensing of plant functional traits.