Grime's CSR theory revisited: A whole‐plant view of vascular plant functioning across contrasting environments

作者：Ruiling Liu, Mark van Kleunen, Simon Pierce, Milan Chytrý, Kun Guo, Petr Pyšek, Wen‐Yong Guo · 发表于：Journal of Ecology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/1365-2745.70146 · 被引用次数：26 · 研究领域：Plant and animal studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Plant Parasitism and Resistance

Abstract To understand how plants adapt to environmental conditions within the constraints of trait trade‐offs, Grime proposed the competitor, stress‐tolerator and ruderal (CSR) ecological strategy theory. This framework categorizes species based on their responses to two key environmental factors: disturbance and stress. Despite its widespread use in ecological research, CSR theory has not yet been rigorously validated against species‐specific environmental preferences, particularly for species beyond Great Britain. Additionally, the typical characteristics of these strategies, particularly in relation to root and flower traits, remain poorly understood. We analysed a dataset of 7037 vascular plant species to investigate the relationships between CSR strategies (quantified using the ‘StrateFy’ tool) and environmental preferences, as well as their associations with 31 plant traits, encompassing above‐ground vegetative, below‐ground and reproductive traits, using canonical correspondence analyses. Furthermore, we explored the potential cascading links among environmental preferences, CSR strategies and functional traits using correlation analyses. Our results revealed that CSR strategies, as reflected in CSR scores, are strongly correlated with species' environmental preferences for both stress and disturbance, and support Grime's hypothesis across a broad range of species and environmental conditions. Moreover, CSR strategies exhibit robust correlations with plant traits from...