Lianas have more acquisitive traits than trees in a dry but not in a wet forest

Lianas are increasing in relative abundance and biomass in many tropical forests. We tested the hypothesis that lianas conform to the fast and acquisitive end of the continuum of plant strategies, allowing lianas to acquire resources faster than trees. We assessed functional traits representative of the leaf (LES) and wood economics spectrum (WES), including plant hydraulics, in 16 liana and 16 tree species in the canopy of two tropical forests at the extremes of the climatic and geological gradient across the Isthmus of Panama. For both forests, we observed a trade-off between the construction of more productive leaves with rapid turnover and expensive leaves with slower turnover. We also found trait variation associated with wood and hydraulic traits. These two axes were orthogonal, suggesting that trade-offs at the leaf and stem, including plant hydraulics, operate independently. For the dry forest, lianas had cheaper and more efficient leaves than trees. For the wet forest, lianas a...