Table 2. Relationships between shade tolerance measures and functional groups (or functional traits), and the difference in measures between shade-tolerance/intolerance groups (or different successional stages).

Shade-tolerance measures	Association with functional groups or functional traits				Difference in the value of a measure between shade-tolerance/intolerance groups and between different successional seral stages
	Successional seral stages	Shade-tolerance/intolerance groups	Rd	Wood density	Successional seral stages	Shade-tolerance/intolerance groups
	n = 59	n = 22	n = 137	n = 132	n = 59	n = 22
Low-light abundance	0.51***	0.85***	−0.11**	0.28***	Early < later***	Intolerant < tolerant***
Sapling ratio	ns	ns	−0.09*	−0.10***	ns	Intolerant < tolerant*
Mortality	ns	ns	ns	0.05**	ns	ns
Light environment	−0.27*	ns	ns	−0.12***	ns	ns
LCP	ns	ns	0.46***	ns	ns	ns

Notes:

The Spearman’s rank correlation was used to assess the association between functional groups (or functional traits). Difference in measures between shade-tolerance/intolerance groups (or different successional stages) was tested by the Wilcoxon rank test (Kruskal–Wallis test). Data on successional seral stages (59 species) and shade-tolerance/intolerance groups (22 species) are presented in the Appendix Table S2. R_d is mean species value of leaf respiration. Wood density is mean species value. n is the number of species.

^***P ≤ 0.001;

^**P ≤ 0.01;

^*P ≤ 0.05, and

ns is for non-significant difference.