Temperate and tropical forests contain a significant proportion of our planet's biodiversity, and they provide important ecosystem services that include climate regulation. Despite their importance, the processes that produce and maintain biodiversity within and among forested ecosystems remain poorly understood. This lack of understanding applies to diverse tropical and subtropical forests, and also to less diverse temperate forests. Further, the insights we do have about forest diversity primarily concern species diversity; far less is known about the processes regulating the phylogenetic, functional and genetic dimensions of biodiversity that are likely to be more closely related to ecosystem function.
Patterns of phylogenetic, genetic, and functional diversity, and their roles in maintaining biological diversity, will be examined in temperate and subtropical forests in the United States and in China. A combination of experimental and observational research will lead to a new approach - termed community functional phylogenomics - that should provide detailed insights into the causes and consequences of the levels of biodiversity in forests. The research will inform forest management, it will strengthen collaboration between researchers in the United States and China, and the project will fund a joint training workshop for graduate students and early career scientists in both countries.
