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Aims. Along with other functional traits, specific leaf area (SLA) is a crucial tool to assess the response of meadow plants to the type of management. However, the variability of leaf traits across habitats is poorly studied. Meadows of Central Forest Reserve represent a long-term experiment as their management was ceased under protection regime. Our study was aimed to reveal the difference between SLA of herbaceous plants at abandoned and managed sites. Location. NW Russia, Tver` Oblast’ (Lat.: 56°26´–56°39´N. Long.: 32°29´–33°01´E). Methods. We measured leaf area and SLA of 24 herbaceous plant species on abandoned and managed upland meadows with similar floristic composition. Fully water-saturated leaves were scanned at 300 dpi, then dried in the oven and weighed to the nearest of 0,1 mg. Leaf area was measured in ImageJ software. Specific leaf area was calculated as a ratio between leaf area and leaf dry mass. The statistical analysis was conducted in R environment. Based on the data for each species at managed sites the coefficients of the regression equation were determined and further used to calculate expected SLA at abandoned sites. To compare the observed and the expected SLA at abandoned sites the Mann-Whitney U-test was applied. Results. We identified four groups of species with different SLA variability. The first group included 12 species whose leaf area and SLA did not differ at abandoned and managed sites. The second group consisted of two species with SLA changes at abandoned sites depending solely on the leaf area which was not connected with the site management. Five species whose leaf size did not differ at abandoned and managed sites while their SLA depended on management belonged to the third group. In this group the observed SLA either increased or decreased compared with the expected one. The fourth group comprised five species whose leaf size differed at abandoned and managed sites with SLA depending on management. Difference was detected neither between forb and grass species nor between tall and short ones. The revealed differences in SLA may be connected not only with management, but also with other ecological factors.