Plant functional traits are key to link plant performance, community structure, and ecosystem functioning. One of the most important worldwide trait variation represents the leaf economics spectrum, which captures a conservative-acquisitive trade-off in plant strategies. In this spectrum, the variation in LMA and foliar nitrogen are key to represent the trade-off between plant production and leaf lifespan. However, to what extent the variation in traits related to plant defenses, which should also affect leaf lifespan, are captured in this leaf economics spectrum is still unclear.
In this study, the variations and relationships among functional traits related to plant production and defenses of woody species were investigated in temperate (Japan) and tropical (Malaysia and Thailand) regions. We found that, in both regions, about half of trait variation was captured in two axes; one was an axis associated with production, and the other was an axis associated with defenses. The both sets of traits were weakly associated. Further, traits related to production clearly differed among functional groups (deciduous, evergreen, coniferous), but traits related to defenses did not among functional groups in both regions. These suggested that traits related to plant defenses were not simply related to leaf economics spectrum.