Plant individuals growing together interact, compete for the same resources and modify their environment. These biotic interactions may have important role in determining what the future plant communities look like, but they are also hard to measure or detect. Here, I investigate how plant functional traits, such as plant height, may inform us about the biotic relationships and help us to find generalizable rules to predict the outcome of the interactions. I focus on Arctic tundra, one of the biomes most affected by climate change. My results will allow more robust evaluation about the winners and losers under future climates and deeper knowledge about the actual underlying mechanisms driving the vegetation changes in the North.

2022

2025