While numerous strategies exist, one underlying theme is constant: plants must make trade-offs when responding to their environment.
[3][9] In general, plants alter their reproductive strategies (i.e., number of offspring) and their growth rate to respond to their ecological niche.
[6][8] While Grime's C-S-R Triangle is still frequently referenced in plant ecology, new strategies are being introduced and gaining momentum in the 21st century.
Emerging from high and low combinations of stress and disturbance are three life strategies commonly used to categorize plants based on environment: (1) C-competitors, (2) S-stress tolerators, and (3) R-ruderals.
Species are often evergreen with small, long-lived leaves or needles, slow resource turnover, and low plasticity and relative growth rate.
Ruderals, inhabiting low stress, high disturbance regimes, allocate resources mainly to seed reproduction and are often annuals or short-lived perennials.
Common characteristics of ruderal species include high relative growth rate, short-lived leaves, and short statured plants with minimal lateral expansion.
[12] In 1998, Mark Westoby proposed a plant ecology strategy scheme (PESS) to explain species distributions based on traits.
[7] The dynamic model incorporated a three axes trade-off among specific leaf area (SLA), canopy height at maturity, and seed mass.
SLA is defined as the area per unit dry mass of mature leaves, developed in the fullest natural light of the species.
[7] This linear model, first introduced by MacArthur and Wilson (1967),[3] has been commonly applied to both plants and animals to describe reproductive strategies.
Whether that's allocation to growth, reproduction, or maintenance, plants are responding to their environment by employing strategies that allow them to persist, survive, and reproduce.