Carolina C. Blanco

TL;DR: TRY as discussed by the authors is a global database of plant traits, including morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs, which can be used for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography.

TL;DR: The extent of the trait data compiled in TRY is evaluated and emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness are analyzed to conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements.

TL;DR: Urgent needs are identified to create more conservation units in different regions, including different grassland types throughout southern Brazil, to develop proper management strategies where grasslands are subject to shrub encroachment and forest expansion and to raise public awareness of the value and vulnerability of this vegetation type.

TL;DR: The results support the conclusion that functional redundancy enhanced community resilience, therefore corroborating the insurance hypothesis and showing that expressing functional redundancy mathematically is a useful tool for testing causal models linking diversity to community stability.

TL;DR: The most important short-term effect was the removal of litter and consequent opening of gaps, mostly by fire, which stimulated vegetation regeneration and provided microsites for the establishment of new species.