Functional traits of young seedlings predict trade-offs in seedling performance in three neotropical forests

Understanding the mechanisms that promote the coexistence of hundreds of species over small areas in tropical forest remains a challenge. Many tropical tree species are presumed to be functionally equivalent shade-tolerant species that differ in performance trade-offs between survival in shade and the ability to quickly grow in sunlight.
Variation in plant functional traits related to resource acquisition is thought to predict variation in performance among species, perhaps explaining community assembly across habitats with gradients in resource availability. Many studies have found low predictive power, however, when linking trait measurements to species demographic rates.
Seedlings face different challenges recruiting on the forest floor and may exhibit different traits and/or performance trade-offs than older individuals face in the eventual adult niche. Seed mass is the typical proxy for seedling success, but species also differ in cotyledon strategy (reserve vs photosynthetic) or other seedling traits. These can cause species with the same average seed mass to have divergent performance in the same habitat.
We combined long-term studies of seedling dynamics with functional trait data collected at a standard developmental stage in three diverse neotropical forests to ask whether variation in coordinated suites of traits predicts variation among species in demographic performance.
Across hundreds of species in Ecuador, Panama, and Puerto Rico, we found seedlings displayed correlated suites of leaf, stem, and root traits, which strongly correlated with seed mass and cotyledon strategy. Variation among species in seedling functional traits, seed mass, and cotyledon strategy were strong predictors of trade-offs in seedling growth and survival.
Our findings highlight the importance of cotyledon strategy in addition to seed mass as a key component of seed and seedling biology. These results also underscore the importance of matching the ontogenetic stage of the trait measurement to the stage of demographic dynamics.

Synthesis: With strikingly consistent patterns across three tropical forests, we find strong evidence for the promise of functional traits to provide mechanistic links between seedling form and demographic performance. 

Methods
This dataset combines seedling demographic performance with leaf, stem, and root functional traits also collected on seedlings.  More details on data collection and processing are available in Metz et al. Journal of Ecology.

Seedling dynamics data are collected in networks of 1-m2 plots in large (16-50 ha) Forest Dynamics Plots at each of three Neotropical forests: Yasuní, Ecuador; Luquillo, Puerto Rico; and Barro Colorado Island, Panama.  Each year in each plot, we tag and measure all seedlings of woody species (including trees, shrubs, palms, and lianas), identify all newly recruited seedlings, and determine the fate of previously tagged seedlings. We examined survival and growth across the first year for newly recruited seedlings from multiple cohorts in the longitudinal study at each site.  

Functional traits were quantified on young, field-harvested seedlings at each site.