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Understanding the processes regulating population temporal stability is important to infer species coexistence and ecosystem stability patterns. It has been hypothesized that population temporal stability could be driven by functional trade‐offs in resource acquisition and growth rate strategies. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing a 13‐year data set from a mown grassland community in a factorial experiment with fertilization and dominant removal as the main treatment effects. Population temporal stability, measured as a coefficient of variation of species' biomass over time, was related to plant traits covering different functional trade‐offs. These included plant height, leaf dry matter content (LDMC), specific leaf area, seed mass, leaf δ¹³C, and rooting depth. Three of the traits (LDMC, rooting depth, and leaf δ¹³C) had significant relationships with population temporal stability, even after accounting for species' …