Do tradeoffs govern plant species responses to different global change treatments?

Plants are subject to tradeoffs among growth strategies such that adaptations for optimal growth in one condition can preclude optimal growth in another. Thus, we hypothesized that the response of plant species abundance to one global change treatment would relate inversely to the response to a second treatment, particularly for treatment combinations that accentuate distinct traits. To address this hypothesis, we examined plant species abundances in 39 global change experiments manipulating CO2, nitrogen, phosphorus, water, temperature, or disturbance. Overall, the directional response of a species to one treatment was 13% more likely than expected to oppose its response to a second. This tendency was detectable across the global dataset but held little predictive power for individual treatment combinations or within individual experiments. While tradeoffs in the ability to respond to different global change drivers exert detectable effects globally, other forces may obscure their infl...