Using traits to uncover tropical forest function

This article is a Commentary on Asner et al . (pp. 973–988), Bahar et al . (pp. 1002–1018), Chavana‐Bryant et al . (pp. 1049–1063), Goldsmith et al . (pp. 989–1001), Malhi et al . (pp. 1019–1032), Rowland et al . (pp. 1064–1077) and Wu et al . (pp. 1033–1048), all of which are published in this issue.