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Gordon Allport, often regarded as the father of American personality psychology, developed a theory that emphasized the importance of understanding people in their present lives rather than focusing on their past, as psychoanalysis did. Allport believed that personality should be studied in healthy, well-adjusted individuals rather than those with psychological problems. He was particularly interested in defining traits, which he saw as fundamental mental structures that guide behavior across...
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Trait-based ecology, trait-free ecology, and in between.

Mark Westoby1

  • 1School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.

The New Phytologist
|October 16, 2024
PubMed
Summary

Trait-based ecology is a framework that uses species traits to understand ecological processes. It ranges from trait-free to trait-centric approaches, offering a spectrum for ecological research.

Keywords:
ecological strategiesequilibrium island biogeographyinteraction websneutral theoryspecies abundance distributionstrait‐growth theory

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Trait-based Ecology

Background:

  • Trait-based ecology is a widely adopted phrase, yet its scope and definition are debated.
  • While some ecological areas are trait-free (e.g., neutral theory), much of ecology inherently involves or can incorporate species traits.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To describe a spectrum of trait-based ecology, from trait-free to trait-centric approaches.
  • To elucidate the productive dialogue between detailed process understanding and broad generalization enabled by trait-based ecology.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis and description of a spectrum of ecological approaches based on trait integration.
  • Categorization of ecological topics into trait-free, trait-implicit, trait-explicit, and trait-centric.

Main Results:

  • A spectrum from trait-free to trait-centric ecology is proposed, including trait-implicit and trait-explicit categories.
  • Trait-centric ecology focuses on positioning strategies along trait dimensions for generalization.
  • Trait-explicit ecology involves physiological, functional, community, and ecosystem studies using traits.

Conclusions:

  • Trait-based ecology is productive due to the interplay between detailed trait-process understanding and broad species generalization.
  • A key enduring question is identifying the most relevant traits for specific ecological processes.