Lesson 12 - Alaska Geobotany Center

Plant Functional Types (PFTs)• It is not feasible to develop global models that include everyecosystem or every species. Therefore, various approaches arebeing used to group the multitude of plant species into moremanageable units that are considered important with respect toecosystem function.• These groups are based on a variety of plant characteristics,including growth forms, life forms, taxonomic groups or othercharacteristics depending on the application.• Numerous methods including: Solomon and Shugart 1993; Box1996, Noble and Gitay 1996; Woodward and Cramer 1996; Smith etal. 1997.