Does the plant economics spectrum change with secondary succession in the forest?

Environmental filters select species with different characteristics. However, these do not exhibit the functional integration of the whole plant level. Functional integration at the whole plant level, between the strategies of the various plant organs, needs to be better elucidated to facilitate the understanding of species ecology over an environmental gradient. Thus, hypotheses were proposed that (1) if functional integration exists between organs, the leaf economic spectrum will be a good indicator of the plant economic spectrum, and that (2) processes of community assembly will change over a successional gradient, generating different economic spectra for the plant. To test these predictions, data on eight functional characteristics (leaf, reproductive, stem and whole plant) was collected in 65 species, distributed in six secondary growth forests (three with approximately 17 years and three with approximately 25 years of abandonment) and three mature forests, located within the dense ombrophilous forest domain in the northern coastal region of Pernambuco, Brazil. The results showed no influence of geographic distance (autocorrelation) or phylogeny. Positive correlations were observed between leaf nutrient concentration (N and P), and negative correlations were observed between leaf nutrient concentration and dry matter content. Functional integration at the whole plant level was not observed. On the primary axis of the principal components analysis, only leaf characteristics and wood density were coordinates, following the same strategy, whilst on the secondary axis, only leaf characteristics and maximum height were coordinates. The observed change in species composition and abundance over the gradient was sufficient for changes in the distribution of functional characteristics and, therefore in strategies, to be observed.