Summary: Trait‐based approaches have improved our understanding of plant evolution, community assembly and ecosystem functioning. A major challenge for the upcoming decades is to understand the functions and evolution of early life‐history traits, across levels of organization and ecological strategies. Although a variety of seed traits are critical for dispersal, persistence, germination timing and seedling establishment, only seed mass has been considered systematically. Here we suggest broadening the range of morphological, physiological and biochemical seed traits to add new understanding on plant niches, population dynamics and community assembly. The diversity of seed traits and functions provides an important challenge that will require international collaboration in three areas of research. First, we present a conceptual framework for a seed ecological spectrum that builds upon current understanding of plant niches. We then lay the foundation for a seed‐trait functional network, the establishment of which will underpin and facilitate trait‐based inferences. Finally, we anticipate novel insights and challenges associated with incorporating diverse seed traits into predictive evolutionary ecology, community ecology and applied ecology. If the community invests in standardized seed‐trait collection and the implementation of rigorous databases, major strides can be made at this exciting frontier of functional ecology.

The rapid expansion of urban areas worldwide is leading to native habitat loss and ecosystem fragmentation and degradation. Although the study of urbanisation’s impact on biodiversity is gaining increasing interest globally, there is still a disconnect between research recommendations and urbanisation strategies. Expansion of the Perth metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain in south-western Australia, one of the world’s thirty-six biodiversity hotspots, continues to affect the Banksia Woodlands (BWs) ecosystem, a federally listed Threatened Ecological Community (TEC). Here, we utilise the framework of a 1989 review of the state of knowledge of BWs ecology and conservation to examine scientific advances made in understanding the composition, processes and functions of BWs and BWs’ species over the last 30 years. We highlight key advances in our understanding of the ecological function and role of mechanisms in BWs that are critical to the management of this ecosystem. The most encouraging change since 1989 is the integration of research between historically disparate ecological disciplines. We outline remaining ecological knowledge gaps and identify key research priorities to improve conservation efforts for this TEC. We promote a holistic consideration of BWs with our review providing a comprehensive document that researchers, planners and managers may reference. To effectively conserve ecosystems threatened by urban expansion, a range of stakeholders must be involved in the development and implementation of best practices to conserve and maintain both biodiversity and human wellbeing.

Unseasonal fire occurrence is increasing globally, driven by climate change and other human activity. Changed timing of fire can inhibit postfire seedling recruitment through interactions with plant phenology (the timing of key processes, e.g., flower initiation, seed production, dispersal, germination), and therefore threaten the persistence of many plant species. Although empirical evidence from winter‐rainfall ecosystems shows that optimal seedling recruitment is expected following summer and autumn (dry season) fires, we sought experimental evidence isolating the mechanisms of poor recruitment following unseasonal (wet season) fire. We implemented a seed‐sowing experiment using nine species native to fire‐prone, Mediterranean‐climate woodlands in southwestern Australia to emulate the timing of postfire recruitment and test key mechanisms of fire seasonality effects. For seeds sown during months when fire is unseasonal (i.e., August–September: end of the wet winter season), seedling recruitment was reduced by up to 99% relative to seeds sown during seasonal fire months (i.e., May–June: end of the dry summer season) because of varying seed persistence, seedling emergence, and seedling survival. We found that up to 70 times more seedlings emerged when seeds were sown during seasonal fire months compared to when seeds were sown during unseasonal fire months. The few seedlings that emerged from unseasonal sowings all died with the onset of the dry season. Of the seeds that failed to germinate from unseasonal sowings, only 2% survived exposure on the soil surface over the ensuing hot and dry summer. Our experimental results demonstrate the potential for unseasonal fire to inhibit seedling recruitment via impacts on pregermination seed persistence and seedling establishment. As ongoing climate change lengthens fire seasons (i.e., unseasonal wildfires become more common) and managed fires are implemented further outside historically typical fire seasons, postfire seedling recruitment may become more vulnerable to failure, causing shifts in plant community composition towards those with fewer species solely dependent on seeds for regeneration.