Greenhouse Access Control System - Cedar City Lab

This project consists of a Greenhouse Control System for the Cedar City Lab Greenhouse. Restoration of plant communities following disturbance or land degradation often requires detailed natural history work to select appropriate species for use. However, this is labor-intensive and often requires considerable site-specific expertise. More recently, ecologists have sought to understand whether using plant functional traits can better inform how communities assemble and ecosystems function. This approach could potentially speed up the selection of species for restoration efforts—instead of years of detailed natural history work done at particular sites, researchers can identify species with particular combinations of traits that will be desirable at particular sites. This work aims to better understand the functional traits present within communities and ecosystems of the Intermountain West, with the goal of developing criteria to help land managers select species for restoration efforts at their sites.  Please see Attachment 1 for a list of Salient Characteristics for this Access Control System.