Understory plants in deciduous forests often rely on access to ephemeral light availability before the canopy closes in spring and after the canopy reopens in fall, a strategy commonly referred to as phenological escape. Although there is evidence for a relationship between understory plant phenology and demographic performance, a mechanistic link is still missing. In this study, we bridged this gap by estimating annual carbon assimilation as a function of foliar phenology and photosynthetic capacity...