Climate change has profound impact on biodiversity in alpine ecosystems and significant change in species composition and diversity have been documented. Such observed changes alone, however, do not explain what makes species winners or losers under various drivers of global change, which is necessary to predict future effects. To test if specific adaptations can explain observed changes in cover and frequency, we collected morphological functional traits and ecophysiological traits related to frost and drought resistance and test if these are related to observed changes from long-term monitoring at two GLORIA sites in Austria. We found that mainly morphological traits, such as leaf area and plant height, as well as leaf carbon content, can explain changes in plant abundance. Consistent trends were observed across different measures of change at both sites, though the explanatory power was moderate. Frost tolerance or drought resistance alone did not explain increase or decrease in abundance, but carbon content emerges as a trait that warrants further research. Since that these traits are easy to collect, we encourage sample more species at different sites and test if the relevant traits are the same in different climate and communities.