Are functional groups a more realistic management unit than individual species for restoration?
Brown, Cynthia*,1, 1 Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO ABSTRACT- Categorizing species according to their functional traits such as requirements for and spatial and temporal use patterns of resources, effects on the environment and responses to environmental perturbations is a very useful approach to take in the restoration of plant communities. These groupings can allow us to (1) ensure the presence of community structural and functional attributes, (2) increase competitiveness of the community to deter the establishment of undesirable species, and (3) simplify and test models of community assembly including resistance to invasion, succession and species coexistence. As useful as functional groups can be, we must not ignore the important roles of individual species. Functional groups condense species lists according to similarities in characteristics that we choose given what we believe to be the traits of most import in our particular environmental context. That may be suffi
