Ecosystems are increasingly threatened by global change. As such, there is a need to both develop and utilize frameworks that can be widely applied across various systems to better understand how global change affects vulnerable communities and ecosystems. Recently, advancements have been made in phycology calling for the utilization of ‘trait-based approaches’ (e.g., functional traits) when investigating community changes in macroalgal communities as opposed to the ‘functional form model’, originally introduced in the 1980s. When utilizing traitbased approaches to investigate functional traits across taxa, a key assumption is that interspecific functional trait variation is greater than intraspecific functional trait variation. Further, these differences in traits are due to ecological niches (interspecific variation) and phenotypic plasticity and/or genetic diversity (intraspecific variation). However, this assumption has only recently been investigated among macroalgal communities within similar habitats. To test the underlying assumption needed to successfully utilize trait-based approaches, I examined the functional traits of dominant macroalgal species within a fringing and fore reef community in the South Pacific. Preliminary analysis demonstrates significant intra- and interspecific differences in functional traits especially at the habitat level. This work further validates the utility of ‘trait-based approaches’ when investigating macroalgal communities. Further, this work suggests that researchers should be cognizant of the sites they collect their functional trait data from, especially when designing future studies, as data are likely to be heavily influenced by habitat.