Plant functional traits are frequently used to compare strategies of species and to predict functions such as growth, reproduction, or phenology. While aboveground traits are well studied, comparatively little is known about belowground traits. In the context of global change, it is crucial to better understand the responses of traits, both above- and belowground, to changing abiotic factors. In this study, we investigated the response of above- and belowground plant traits to climatic and soil parameters by cultivating five perennial herbaceous species in experimental beds at five Central European botanical gardens. After up to four growing seasons we measured above- and belowground traits, and analysed their relationships to differences in climatic conditions, soil chemistry and nutrient availability. In particular, we investigated whether above- and belowground trait pairs with similar functions respond correspondingly to environmental parameters. We found that above- and belowground traits are tightly linked, with plant height negatively correlated with root branching and LDMC positively correlated with RDMC. Overall intraspecific variation in response to environmental factors was mainly driven by nutrient availability in terms of soil C/N ratios, while climatic differences played a less important role. Traits differed in the extent to which they were shaped by broad scale environmental conditions compared to micro-environmental conditions. Our results emphasise that even minor differences in environmental gradients or microhabitat variations can lead to intraspecific variation in above- and belowground traits. This highlights the importance of using traits measured on sites for trait-based approaches. To some extent, easily measurable aboveground traits are linked to root traits in terms of their function and responses to environmental conditions, but we do not recommend using aboveground traits as a substitute for root traits in trait-based approaches as the correlations are very difficult to predict and may depend on the habitat.

Climate change may increase phenological mismatches in biotic interactions due to shifts in flowering times of plants. Most studies focussed on first flowering, the timing of entire flowering periods have hardly been studied though this information is important when evaluating phenological mismatches. Here, we explore variations in flowering curves across 263 perennial herbaceous species spanning the entire flowering period, and determine whether species-specific patterns are linked to species’ functional properties. The results clearly suggest that competitive species, early-flowering and late-flowering species tended to invest resources in single but intensive flowering events, with shorter flowering durations and more left-skewed curves (‘all-in-one’ strategy). In contrast, stress-tolerant species distributed resources over several flowering peaks (‘bet-hedging’ strategy). We conclude that information on species properties can be used to extract information on different flowering strategies, that can be used to evaluated impacts of climate change not only on flowering times but also on biotic interactions.