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When the first edition of this book appeared in 1988 it was hailed as a breakthrough in the functional approach to the British flora, and the accounts of the functional ecology of common British vascular plants were widely used in academic research as well as in schemes for the management and conservation of vegetation.

For this Second Edition Professor Grime has prepared twenty new panels to draw attention to the many new opportunities to `scale up or across' from dominant plant traits to other component organisms or to particular ecosystem processes. Information relating to many less common species has been added to the tables at the back of the book, and a new chapter has been introduced explaining the steps leading to the current widespread use of plant traits in efforts to interpret or predict vegetation responses to changing conditions.

* Investigates the existence and identity of primary plant functional types
* Analyses traits that drive ecosystems and traits that merely control entry and persistence in plant communities
* Isolates five different mechanisms of plant co-existence
* Reviews plant community responses to extreme events and climate change
* Provides evidence that plant functional types control the tempo of ecosystem functioning
* How much will it cost to protect grassland diversity?
* What is happening to the British flora?