Desert plants are zonal plants with unique functional traits and resource balance in arid areas. Plant functional traits and their diversity patterns and resource balancing strategies play a key role in the optimization of community structure and the improvement of ecosystem functions. This review summarized the research progress on functional diversity and trade-off strategies from three aspects:the functional traits of desert plant tissues and organs, the trade-off strategy of functional traits, components and measures of functional diversity. 1) The unique root, stem, and leaf functional traits of desert plants reveal the response of vegetation to the environmental changes and the impact on ecosystem functions. Research based on plant functional traits can help solve many key ecological problems; 2) As the most common relationship between plant functional traits, the trade-off relationship is a combination of traits formed after natural screening. Key traits have been discovered and the concept of "economic spectrum" has been creatively proposed. In the process of desert plant research, the characteristic attributes of desert plant roots, stems and leaves should be analyzed to screen key traits, focusing on the trade-off relationship between key traits and the whole plant traits; 3) The functional diversity is an important part of biodiversity that affects the operation and function of ecosystems. The functional diversity of desert plants can predict and indicate the impact of species in the community on the functioning and process changes of desert ecosystems. The components of functional diversity can reflect the niche occupancy status and resource utilization degree of the community from different angles. The choice of index should be reflected in the degree of difference between the functional characteristics of the species within the community, and at the same time, the species themselves should be considered the degree of dominance within the community. Finally, this article combs some new research directions and contents for future research on the functional traits and diversity of desert plants, and hopes to provide some new ideas for the topic selection and development of desert plant physiology and ecology.