NOTE TIME & LOCATION CHANGE

Abstract
Trait-based approaches are increasingly seen as a way to reduce the complexity of ecological communities and to incorporate functional diversity in ecosystem models. In this talk I will present Elena Litchman's and my lab's work applying trait-based ideas to marine and freshwater plankton communities. First, I will describe empirical patterns in the resource utilization and thermal traits we found using meta-analyses of published eco-physiological traits. Second, I will discuss trait-based approaches to modeling ecological and eco-evolutionary dynamics and how they can enhance our understanding of community structure in heterogeneous environments. Finally, I will describe recent theory on how local selection and immigration from the regional species pool interact to determine distribution of commonness and rarity in ecological communities and an experimental test.