Human activities continue to alter global climate and have led to the widespread modification of ecosystem processes. These changes are impacting how tropical forests function and have profound implications for how to properly manage these ecosystems. Moreover, topical forests are particularly impacted by anthropogenic activities such as widespread deforestation and degradation, which are heavily modifying ecosystem function. Ecophysiological approaches can be used to determine how and why forests will respond to anthropogenic induced changes and how we can mitigate these impacts with forest management and restoration. The objective of our symposium is to unite scientists using ecophysiological approaches to improve management best-practices and restoration outcomes in degraded ecosystems. Our symposium showcases novel and exciting studies on the use of plant ecophysiology to improve applied forest management and restoration practice. This symposium has a diverse group of speakers that will present the results of applied management studies where they use ecophysiological and functional trait based approaches. We anticipate our symposium being of interest to many ATBC attendees, especially those interested in tropical plant ecophysiology, conservation, and restoration ecology. Talks in our symposium will emphasize the importance of connecting ecophysiology research with management practice, which has the potential to not only refine ecological theory, but also to improve the conservation outcomes across the tropics.