Altitude influences plant growth by affecting temperature, precipitation, and soil nutrient contents. Plants adapt to altitudinal gradients through various strategies, characterized by the trade-offs of plant functional traits along with the environmental gradients, i.e. economic spectrum of plant functional traits. Understanding the relationship between plant functional traits and altitude is crucial for elucidating plant adaptive strategies in response to altitude changes. In addition, it helps to reveal the economic spectrum effects of plant functional traits across various altitudes, offering vital insights for the management and ecological restoration of subalpine grassland ecosystems. This study took the Luya Mountain National Nature Reserve as the study area, attempting to explore the economic spectrum effects of plant community functional traits across altitudinal gradients. Five altitude grades were taken as 1600m, 1800m, 2000m, 2200m and 2600m respectively. Through field sampling, surveying and laboratory experiments, we measured index of plant functional traits, plant community characteristics, and soil nutrients contents. The major results were as follows: (1) Specific leaf area (SLA), leaf nitrogen content (LNC), leaf phosphorus content (LPC), specific root length (SRL), specific root area (SRA), root nitrogen content (RCC) and root phosphorus content (RPC) showed increasing tendency along with altitudinal increase (P<0.05), in sharp contrast with a significant reduction in leaf dry matter content (LDMC) with altitudinal increase (P<0.05). Neither leaf carbon content (LCC) nor root carbon content (RCC) displayed a clear trend in relation to increasing altitude (P>0.05). (2) Under the combined influence of altitude, slope, and soil nitrogen and phosphorus content, significant differences in plant functional traits were observed across different altitudes. Rao's quadratic entropy index showed a pattern of initial increase, subsequent decrease, and a final resurgence with altitude. (3) Redundancy analysis (RDA) revealed that altitude is the key factor influencing plant functional traits, explaining 40.4% of the variance (P=0.002). The study analyzed the economic spectrum of plant functional traits across different altitudinal gradients, demonstrating that subalpine grassland plants in the Luya Mountain region adapt to environmental changes with altitudinal increase by shifting from resource-conservative to resource-acquisitive survival strategies.