Introduction Research on plant functional traits has surged over the past two decades in an effort to characterize plant form and function (Wright et al. 2004, Reich 2014, Díaz et al. 2016, Kattge et al. 2020). Functional traits are defined as any morphological, physiological or phenological feature that can be measured at the plant level and potentially influence its growth and/or fitness (Violle et al. 2007).