Extending Trait-Based Ecology Across Disciplines in the Face of Global Change

Trait-based ecology has been successful in linking organismal traits to ecological responses under environmental change and to their effects on ecosystem processes, offering a conceptual foundation with promise for translation across disciplines. Human-induced environmental changes—climate change, land use alterations, biotic community shifts, and pollution—impact life, physical, health, and socio-economic systems. Addressing these global change impacts requires an interdisciplinary approach to improve policy and management. However, predicting responses to global changes remains challenging due to cross-system complexity. We propose a trait-based approach, encompassing attributes important to the responsiveness of different systems across disciplines as an effective solution to overcome barriers for cross-system communication. This paper reviews literature on traits central to global change sciences, highlighting their interdisciplinary links. We present examples where a trait-based approach connects life, physical, social, and health sciences disciplines, spatial scales, and levels of organization. We propose a trait-based framework for bridging science disciplines by using pathways that connect global change drivers and traits. This framework aims to offer a comprehensive perspective integrating multiple system hierarchies, thereby guiding interdisciplinary research to mitigate environmental threats to society.