Abstract: Plant functional traits have long been used in revealing evolution rules of plant traits and evolutionary relationships among species, exploring mechanisms of species coexistence and community assembly, as well as in predicting vegetation dynamics under climate change and human disturbance. The LEDA Traitbase, a database of lifehistory traits of the Northwest European flora, started in 2002, mainly focusing on functional traits involved in plant species persistence, regeneration and dispersability, has significant influences in plant ecology study. This paper introduced methods for the identification and measurement of functional traits in this traitbase to provide guidelines for trait selection and measurement to facilitate the establishment of similar database in China and to advance theoretical ecology and functional ecology.

Key words: sloped apple orchard, sediment, soil nutrients, dry broadcasting rate, polyacrylanide (PAM), surface runoff