Ulrich, WernerMatthews, ThomasBiurrun, IdoiaAleksanyan, AllaBorovyk, DariiaBurrascano, SabinaCampos, Juan AntonioChusova, OlhaCzarniecka-Wiera, MartaCzortek, PatrykDembicz, IwonaEssl, FranzJanišová, MonikaLabadessa, RoccoNapoleone, FrancescaPielech, RemigiuszVynokurov, DenysPuchałka, RadosławPeres-Neto, Pedro2026-02-022026-02-022025-08-13Ulrich, W., Matthews, T. J., Biurrun, I., Aleksanyan, A., Borovyk, D., Burrascano, S., Puchałka, R... et al. (2025). The proper middle class: assessing the importance of subordinate species on plant community assembly and functional diversity. Oikos, e115720030-1299http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/8857ABSTRACT: The local species abundance distribution (SAD) and the associated distributions of species functional traits (TADs) both result from the process of plant community assembly. Community assembly has been extensively studied for dominant and rare plants, while subordinates, the species of intermediate abundance in a community, have received less research attention although this group is comparatively species rich and important for community functioning. Here, we study the functional role of subordinate species (those covering the intermediate 50% of abundance ranks) using a large data set of Palearctic dry and semi-dry grassland plant communities and data on specific leaf area, seed mass and plant height. Our findings indicate that species rank orders of SADs and TADs tend to be negatively correlated, causing the TAD to have higher evenness than the associated SAD. Subordinate species represented on average less than 15% of total plant abundance and trait space. Functional diversity of subordinates was lower than expected by a null model that assumed an equiprobable random distribution of trait values among plant species. Climate seasonality and elevation appeared to be the most important drivers of subordinate abundance and functional diversity. We conclude that subordinates differ from dominants in trait composition, leading to their partial functional independence from dominants.engdominance ordersPalaearctic grasslandsplant functional traitsspecies abundance distributionresearch article10.1002/oik.115721600-0706