Functional diversity (also trait diversity) is the diversity of functional characteristic of species.
The functional framework is useful to go beyond species identities.
Specifically it is useful to identify specific community assembly mechanisms.
However, it suffers for its biggest challenge of selecting functional traits and seeing which ones are available.
Throughout my research project I’ve mobilized the functional approach to develop new diversity indices, to understand the relationship between environment and birds’ diets at global scale, to identify community assembly processes in specific communities.
