![](https://www.yalescientific.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/grass-300x201.jpg)
90.3
Yale Graduate Challenges Existing Ideas About Ecosystem Models
Plant functional traits are viewed as key to predicting important ecosystem and community properties among biogeographic regions. However, a recent study led by Elisabeth Forrestel GRD ’15 challenges the trait-based approach to predicting ecosystem function by demonstrating that different combinations of functional traits can act to maximize net primary productivity, a community property, in a given environmental setting.