Plans have developed CSR ecological strategies—competitive (C), stress-tolerant (S), and ruderal (R)—to cope with various stressful environments and compete with other plants for resources by modulating their leaf functional traits. Ziwuling represents the only fully intact natural secondary forest habitat on the Loess Plateau, with research on the CSR ecological strategies of its dominant species being scarce. We conducted a systematic investigation into the ecological strategies of the ten dominant woody plants in Ziwuling's natural secondary forest using ten leaf functional traits, which revealed that the ten plants could be classified into three strategies: S, S/CS, and S/CSR, with S/CS and S/CSR strategies being dominant in the vegetation, accounting for 40.0% and 38.3%, respectively. Specifically, S plants exhibited characteristics such as low leaf nitrogen content (1.6—2.0) mg/L, leaf phosphorus content (0.13—0.17) mg/L, specific leaf area (1.0—1.9) m2/kg, δ15N (-1.36—-1.12)‰, and high leaf thickness (0.08—0.13) mm. In contrast, S/CSR-type plants showed higher nitrogen content (2.6—3.0) mg/L, phosphorus content (0.18—0.22) mg/L, specific leaf area (2.5—3.7) m2/kg, leaf δ15N (-1.14—-1.03)‰, and lower leaf thickness (0.05—0.11) mm, while S/CS plants had intermediate values for these traits. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen content, leaf phosphorus content, and δ15N were the main leaf functional traits that differentiated among strategies. The structural equation model further revealed that physiological, water, and nutrient factors played distinct roles in the formation of different ecological strategies. S-strategy plants were primarily influenced by nutrient and physiological factors, whereas C-strategy and R-strategy plants were influenced by the indirect effects of physiological and nutrient factors. This study suggests that dominant plants in Ziwuling's natural secondary forests adjust their resource acquisition capacity and allocation patterns by modifying leaf morphology, water, and nutrient uptake, resulting in ecological strategies adapted to various environmental conditions.