Functional and taxonomic diversity of wetlands and its relationship to ecosystem processes

Functional diversity is a component of biodiversity that generally concerns the range of things that organisms do in ecosystems. The relationship between taxonomic and functional diversity is virtually unknown in the most of ecosystems. Proposed project is based on the study of three ecosystem processes of key importance in wetlands: decomposition rate, primary productivity and invasibility. Pond-dwelling communities of plant and macroinvertebrates are proposed here as a model system for the research with the following aims:
1) To evaluate the effect of environment and diversity (functional and taxonomic) on ecosystem processes
2) To assess the response of taxonomic and functional diversity to human influence