Islands are fantastic model systems in ecology and biogeography. Despite their restricted global landmass, they hold a disproportionately high number of endemic plant species. At the same time, island biotas are facing enormous pressures from biological invasions, habitat loss and rising sea levels. More than ever before, there is a need to understand the key processes underpinning the assembly and evolution of island floras worldwide. Islands are also ideal study systems because they are comparatively small, have distinct boundaries, and exhibit striking examples of evolutionary diversification. Consequently, island research has made important contributions to our understanding of ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes.

The Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography, arguably the most influential ecological model, considers islands as static entities and species as ecologically equivalent. This view neglects important notions of contemporary ecology and biogeography: i) that islands are indeed highly dynamic systems and ii) that differences in species functional traits are key to advancing our understanding of the assembly and evolution of species communities.

Subproject 8 works towards developing the conceptual foundations of a functional island biogeography of plants by delivering a set of quantitative case studies. We take a macroecological approach and aim at relating functional diversity and trait composition of insular plant assemblages to different island characteristics to infer the processes acting at different spatial and temporal scales.In the first phase of DynaCom, SP8 investigated how island geomorphological characteristics of islands shape taxonomical and functional diversity in different successional stages and disturbances level on the Frisian Islands (local and regional scale). In the second phase we will improve methods to fill gaps on functional trait data for island species. In the current phase, we will continue to explore how functional traits drive island turnover and disharmony (global scale).