Tropical montane forests are characterized by heterogenous environmental conditions drastically changing across elevational gradient that contribute to high diversification of species. The exceptionally species-rich plant communities in tropical mountains are reflected as well in their high functional diversity, and functional traits can mirror different life strategies of plants depending on the local environment and access to the resources. Previous studies have shown that different traits tend to decrease in communities with increasing elevation, but little is known how functional traits of plants at different plant life stages change in relation to elevations and local resources. We showed that specific leaf area in adult trees, seed mass in seed rain and initial height of seedlings significantly decrease with elevations in tropical montane forest in Southern Ecuador. In contrast, we found that the same trait composition responds differently to local soil and light conditions with pronounced differences between trait-environment associations at different plant life stages. Our study emphasizes the role of both, broad-scale and local-scale environmental conditions for tree communities in tropical mountains and the overlooked aspect of ontogeny in trait-environment associations in diverse tropical communities. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.10421
