Figure 1.

Schematic diagram representing hypotheses about the distribution of functional trait combinations across the correlated hydraulic safety‐efficiency and investment in tissues trade‐off axes (a, adapted from Méndez‐Alonzo et al., ²⁰¹²). Within this trait space, dominant species (with higher biomass) are expected to be bounded by trade‐offs in trait combinations that favour drought tolerance (b) or drought avoidance (c). Therefore, positive biomass net changes (red areas in the continuum) can be expected for both strategies under an extreme drought (d). Here, both drought tolerance and drought avoidance are alternative optimal strategies for water‐constraints in TDF. Because species with other trait combinations are not expected to cope with drought conditions, they should not be present or be associated to low performance under extreme drought conditions. Dark green tree silhouettes represent evergreen species and light green tree silhouettes deciduous species.