Plant functional traits reflect the evolutionary process of plants and external influences. The most common plant functional traits include physiological and morphological traits, reproductive and nutritional traits, underground and aboveground traits, response traits and influence traits. Through the response of plant functional characteristics to global change, we can intuitively understand the response of plants to environmental change. In recent decades, the study of plant functional traits has involved many levels, from organ, species (individuals), community to ecosystem level, and expanded to various fields of ecological research. In order to study the internal relationship, trade-off and productivity optimization mechanism between functional traits, as well as the functional traits among individuals, researchers have conducted a lot of research on the response and adaptation of plant communities or ecosystems to global change from the perspective of traits. Leaf functional traits can reflect high adaptability of plants to the environment and the ability of self-regulation in complex habitats, and also reflect the basic characteristics of plants and the effective utilization of resources. In this study, 144 dominant woody plants in Karst evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved forests in Muron National Nature Reserve were selected as the research objects, and their leaf thickness (LT), leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf length width ratio (L/W), leaf tissue density (LTD), leaf morphological characteristics and variation degree of 12 leaf element characteristics were measured, and the adaptive strategies of plants to karst habitats were discussed. The results showed that the variation degree of 17 characters was different, among which the variation coefficient of leaf area was the largest, reaching 133.31%, while the variation coefficient of leaf carbon was the smallest, reaching 7.73%. The variation degree of leaf elements was generally higher than that of leaf morphological characters. There were significant differences in leaf thickness, specific leaf area, leaf length width ratio and leaf nitrogen content among different leaf habit species. Some leaf characters were significantly correlated, and a series of optimally functional character combinations were obtained, reflecting the adaptability of plants to special habitats in karst areas. Along the PC1 axis with high contribution rate of traits, leaf economic spectrum could be defined. Most evergreen plants adopted economic conservation strategies, while most deciduous plants gathered on the side of resource acquisition. Compared with adjacent non-karst areas, plants in karst areas had smaller LA and SLA. These results reflect the different leaf characteristics of plant leaf formation in karst areas, as well as different resource acquisition strategies of evergreen and deciduous plants distributed at both ends of the economic spectrum, reveal the adaptive strategies of plants to the habitat, and can provide scientific guidance for vegetation restoration in karst areas.