Slow growth as a strategy for plant longevity

Ecological theories predict a fundamental trade-off between fast growth and the probability of achieving longevity, with far-reaching consequences for ecosystem resilience and carbon residence time. Tree-ring studies have revealed a globally consistent negative relationship between growth rate and lifespan, yet comparable large-scale evidence for such trade-offs beyond trees remains scarce, largely due to methodological limitations. Here, we exploit annual growth rings formed by secondary thickening in perennial herbaceous plants to test whether the growth-longevity trade-off represents a widespread axis of plant strategies extending across life forms. Using an extensive dataset of over 3100 herbaceous and small woody species, including lianas, sampled across five continents and ecosystems ranging from the Arctic to hot semideserts, we reveal a robust association between slow growth and longevity across life forms and environmental conditions. Moreover, the growth rate exhibited a strong temperature dependence, giving rise to an apparent longevity-temperature relationship, highlighting ecological relevance of growth-longevity coupling. Together, our findings identify the growth-longevity trade-off as a widespread constraint on plant strategies, with important implications for predicting vegetation dynamics, ecosystem stability, and the persistence of terrestrial carbon storage in a changing climate.