Nathan Kraft

About

Nathan Kraft is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. His research focuses on studying the ecological and evolutionary forces that structure communities, particularly plant systems. His projects integrate aspects of community ecology, biogeography, ecophysiology, and phylogenetics, with recent work centered on the forests of lowland Amazonia and annual plant communities in California. His research addresses species coexistence, plant responses to climate change, the distribution of diversity at broad spatial scales, and the assembly of regional biotas.

Research topics

• Biology
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Atmospheric sciences
• Geology

Selected publications

• Climatic and soil factors explain the two-dimensional spectrum of global plant trait variation

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2021 · 335 citations

  Plant functional traits can predict community assembly and ecosystem functioning and are thus widely used in global models of vegetation dynamics and land-climate feedbacks. Still, we lack a global understanding of how land and climate affect plant traits. A previous global analysis of six traits observed two main axes of variation: (1) size variation at the organ and plant level and (2) leaf economics balancing leaf persistence against plant growth potential. The orthogonality of these two axes…

  DOI

• Global gradients in intraspecific variation in vegetative and floral traits are partially associated with climate and species richness

  Global Ecology and Biogeography · 2020 · 95 citations

  Abstract Aim Intraspecific trait variation (ITV) within natural plant communities can be large, influencing local ecological processes and dynamics. Here, we shed light on how ITV in vegetative and floral traits responds to large‐scale abiotic and biotic gradients (i.e., climate and species richness). Specifically, we tested whether associations of ITV with temperature, precipitation and species richness were consistent with any of four hypotheses relating to stress tolerance and competition. Fu…

  DOI

• Small rainfall changes drive substantial changes in plant coexistence

  Nature · 2022 · 92 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• The ecological causes of functional distinctiveness in communities

  Ecology Letters · 2023-06-15 · 29 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Recent work has shown that evaluating functional trait distinctiveness, the average trait distance of a species to other species in a community offers promising insights into biodiversity dynamics and ecosystem functioning. However, the ecological mechanisms underlying the emergence and persistence of functionally distinct species are poorly understood. Here, we address the issue by considering a heterogeneous fitness landscape whereby functional dimensions encompass peaks representing trait com…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Refocusing the microbial rare biosphere concept through a functional lens

  Trends in Ecology & Evolution · 2024-07-09 · 26 citations

  reviewOpen access

  The influential concept of the rare biosphere in microbial ecology has underscored the importance of taxa occurring at low abundances yet potentially playing key roles in communities and ecosystems. Here, we refocus the concept of rare biosphere through a functional trait-based lens and provide a framework to characterize microbial functional rarity, a combination of numerical scarcity across space or time and trait distinctiveness. We demonstrate how this novel interpretation of the rare biosph…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Higher order interactions, functional trait changes, and species coexistence in an annual plant community

  NSF · $627k · 2020–2025

• Functional traits and the mechanisms of species coexistence in an annual plant community

  NSF · $526k · 2016–2020

• Functional traits and the mechanisms of species coexistence in an annual plant community

  NSF · $530k · 2015–2016

Frequent coauthors

• Cyrille Violle

  Centre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive

  105 shared

• Brian J. Enquist

  Santa Fe Institute

  48 shared

• David D. Ackerly

  University of California, Berkeley

  33 shared

• Jens Kattge

  Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

  29 shared

• Josep M. Serra‐Diaz

  Aarhus University

  29 shared

• Brody Sandel

  Santa Clara University

  28 shared

• Claire Fortunel

  25 shared

• Jens‐Christian Svenning

  Aarhus University

  25 shared

Labs

• 2023-2024 Undergraduate Research Lab AvailabilityPI

Education

• Ph.D., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2005

• M.S., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2001

• B.S., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1999

Similar researchers at University of California, Los Angeles

• Lawren Sackh-95
• H. Bradley Shafferh-80
• Glen MacDonaldh-79