Life history traits determine how plants allocate limited resources across growth, reproduction, and survival, shaping their ecological success and evolutionary trajectories. As environmental conditions become increasingly variable and extreme, plants must make strategic decisions about when to germinate, grow, and reproduce. These decisions are shaped by both genetic constraints and environmental cues, and their outcomes have profound consequences for individual fitness, population viability, and species coexistence. 
    By integrating experimental ecology with approaches in plant physiology, morphology, molecular ecology, and biogeography, our study explores how plants adapt their life history strategies to changing environments. Core questions include: How do plants adjust germination timing and resource allocation (e.g., trade-off between growth and defense) to cope with resource fluctuations and climate change? To what extent do anticipatory phenotypic responses incur fitness costs under environmental variability due to "false alarms"? Do populations from different geographic regions exhibit consistent life history strategies? And can divergence in life history strategies among species promote long-term coexistence within plant communities?