Extended Data Fig. 1: Effect of specific leaf area (SLA) on seedling growth under favourable conditions.

Data were collected from 10 independent publications that reported seedling growth representing 263 species-experiments combinations and 212 distinct plant species (a), different forest biomes (b), plant types (c), and forested continents (d). A subset of values representing the tree species shared by the 10 publications about seedling growth and by the present study about trees is shown (e). Data are standardized to enable comparisons among sites (see Methods). Linear regressions were fitted by class of values. The SLA trait was chosen because it was studied in all the 10 publications (Supplementary Note 1) and because SLA is a key trait in the plant economics spectrum (ref. ²⁴).