Abstract: Aims Studying the coordination and differences in the functional traits of leaves and fine roots can help to better understand the ecological strategies of plants from the perspective of the whole plant. Methods In this study, we measured and analyzed the leaf and root traits of 20 species of woody plants (10 trees and 10 shrubs) in the natural evergreen broadleaf forest of Wanmulin Nature Reserve in Fujian Province, and explored the differences in the coordination of root and leaf functional traits and survival strategies between tree and understory shrub species in subtropical natural evergreen broadleaf forest. Important findings It was found that there was a strong correlation (P<0.05) between the leaf nitrogen concentration and root nitrogen concentration only among the similar traits of leaf and first-order root, and it was not affected by phylogeny. There was a leaf economic axis and a leaf tissue density-leaf thickness variance axis for leaf traits in the community, and a cooperative axis (represented by negatively correlated root diameter-ratio root length) and a root economic axis (represented by negatively correlated root nitrogen concentration-root tissue density) for root traits at level 1. There was no significant correlation (P>0.05) between root and leaf economic axes. Significant differences (P<0.01) were found between tree and shrub species only in the root cooperation axis, with trees having larger root diameters and shrubs having higher specific root lengths. In addition, the SLA of shrub species was significantly larger than that of tree species. The results indicated that leaf and root traits in subtropical natural broad-leaved evergreen forests showed a complex integration relationship, and that tree and shrub species adopted different aboveground and belowground strategies to adapt to the habitat heterogeneity in the community. The results of this study expand the understanding of the coordination between root and leaf traits at the local scale, and contribute to a deeper understanding of the ecological processes and species coexistence mechanisms in the community.

Key words: plant functional traits, leaf economic spectrum, root economic space, aboveground-belowground linkages, trade-off strategies, first-order root, leaf