Understanding plant-environment interactions is an important link to studying the impact of climate change on community assemblies and population dynamics, especially for tree species that define the ecosystem they occupy. Based on seed mass and germination data of three conifers over six decades (1955–2015) across British Columbia, Canada, we performed pairwise correlation analysis between focal traits and the environment (climates in crop year and four prior-years and nitrogen resources). Using key environmental correlates, we constructed a linear mixed model to assess both traits and performed linear discrimination analysis to predict trait tendencies under future climate scenarios. Findings showed that seed mass variation was considerably ascribed to nitrogen deposition and climate in prior-years preceding seed crop. Climate in crop year had higher correlations with seed germination than in prior-years, but germination-climate correlations were much weaker than seed mass-climate counterparts. Both seed mass and germination had high correlations with temperature-based climate variables, such as evapotranspiration, degree-days above 5 °C (positive) and below 18 °C (negative); however, some climate variables had high but opposite correlations with the same trait between species. Across the study region, ecological trade-offs between species were similar for the aspect of temperature but differed between precipitation-based variables, indicating the important role of precipitation in ecological constraints. Finally, we predicted that climate change would result in more spatially homogeneous traits and make them shift towards intermediate or low levels. These results have important implications for the natural seedling regeneration of forest trees under climate change, which potentially cascades to influence trait expression, plant fitness and population persistence.

了解植物与环境之间的相互作用是研究气候变化对社区集会和种群动态的影响的重要链接，特别是对于定义了它们所占据的生态系统的树木而言。根据加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省六个针叶树（1955-2015年）中三个针叶树的种子质量和发芽数据，我们对焦点性状与环境（作物年度和前四年的气候以及氮资源）之间进行了成对相关分析。使用关键的环境相关因素，我们构建了一个线性混合模型来评估两个特征，并进行了线性判别分析以预测未来气候情景下的特征趋势。研究结果表明，种子质量变化很大程度上归因于种子作物前一年的氮沉降和气候。作物年度的气候与种子发芽的相关性高于往年，但发芽-气候的相关性远弱于种子质量-气候的相关性。种子质量和发芽都与基于温度的气候变量（如蒸散，高于5°C（正）和低于18°C（负）的日数）高度相关；但是，某些气候变量与物种之间的同一性状具有较高但相反的相关性。在整个研究区域中，物种之间的生态权衡在温度方面相似，但在基于降水的变量之间却有所不同，这说明了降水在生态约束中的重要作用。最后，我们预测气候变化将导致空间上更加均匀的特征，并使它们向中等或低水平转移。