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Instead of classifying plants, animals, and bacteria as separate species, SFI External Professor Brian Enquist and co-authors argue for a new approach to representing life in a special feature for PNAS.

To better predict the effects of climate change on ecosystems, the authors advocate for “functional biogeography,” which models living things along a continuous spectrum of their traits rather than separating them into millions of distinct species. The approach provides a framework for research that predicts ecosystem responses to environmental change.

Read the article in PNAS (September 15, 2014)