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ABSTRACT Aim Human land-use has dramatically altered the amount, quality, and connectivity of habitat for species worldwide. Understanding how these changes affect individual species is essential for predicting the overall consequences of land-use change for biodiversity. Location The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Forest cover on the island increased from about 18 to 45% from the late 1940s to the early 2000s. Methods Using data on geographic distributions and functional traits for 454 tree species, we evaluated how gain of potential habitat was related to species-specific climatic associations and life-history strategies. We estimated species-specific potential habitat (climatically suitable and forested) with species distribution models and data on forest cover. We characterized each species’ niche breadth (the range of environmental conditions it occupies) and niche position (the environmental conditions it prefers) to compare with the conditions in reforested areas. Results Species with relatively more potential habitat in 1951 (climatically suitable and forested) also had relatively larger gains in potential habitat from 1951 to 2000. Species that tend to occupy conditions different from those common in reforested areas (i.e., more ‘marginal’ habitats) gained relatively less potential habitat and species with broad environmental niches gained more potential habitat. Additionally, species with relatively acquisitive functional traits gained more suitable habitat than those with relatively conservative traits. Main conclusions Our results show that Puerto Rico’s reforestation preferentially increased habitat for species that (1) already had suitable habitat in the landscape, (2) tolerate a wide range of climatic conditions, and (3) exhibit fast, acquisitive functional strategies. These findings illustrate how land-use change in heterogeneous tropical landscapes can generate non-uniform habitat gains across species, potentially favoring generalist over specialist species and reshaping community composition.