Shipley, B. 2009.  From plant traits to vegetation structure: Chance and selection in the assembly of ecological communities.  Cambridge University Press

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Note: the statistical methods described in this book can be found in the new FD library of the R program

Download Preface

Download Chapter 1:  Introduction

Chapter 2: Population-based community assembly.  This chapter compares and contrasts the trait-based model  with the more traditional models based on population dynamics.

Chapter 3: Trait-based community assembly.  This chapter reviews the notions and empirical results of looking at community assembly through the lens of plant traits rather than plant species.

Chapter 4: Bayesian statistics, information theory and the maximum entropy formalism.  This chapter develops the mathematical background to the model.

Chapter 5: Community dynamics, natural selection and the origin of community-aggregated traits.  This chapter develops the mathematical links between natural selection (breeder's equation), community dynamics and community-aggregated traits.

Chapter 6: A Mediterranean succession.  This chapter presents an empirical application of the model to an old-field secondary succession.

Chapter 7: The statistical mechanics of species' abundance distributions. This chapter extends the model to show how species abundance distributions can be derived directly using the type of model developed in this book.

Chapter 8: Traits are not enough.  This chapter considers under what conditions a knowledge of traits is not sufficient, and proposes how to combine aspects of neutral community theory with trait-based environmental filtering.