Western-Mediterranean Pinus pinaster tree ring widths and indices for the period 1950-2014

Aim: We investigate the effects of the environmental and geographical processes driving growth resilienceand recovery in response to drought inMediterraneanPinus pinasterforests. We explicitly consider how intra-specific variability modulates growth resilience to drought.

Location: western Mediterranean basin

Methods: We analyzed tree rings froma large network of 48 forests (836 trees) encompassing wide ecological and climatic gradients and including six provenances. To characterize the major constraints of P. pinaster growth under extremely dry conditions, we simulated growth responses to temperature and soil moisture using a process-based growth model coupled with the quantification of climate-growth relationships.Then, we related growth-resilience indices to provenance and site variables considering different drought events.

Results: P. pinaster displayed strong variation in growth resilience across its distributional range, but common patterns were found within each provenance. Post-drought resilience increased with elevation and drier conditions but decreased with spring precipitation. Trees from dry sites were less resistant to drought but recovered faster than trees from wet sites.

Main conclusions: Resilience strategies differed among tree provenances: wet forests showed higher growth resistance to drought, while dry forests presentedfaster growthrecovery, suggesting different impacts of climate warming on forest productivity.We detected geographicallystructured resilience patterns corresponding to different provenances,confirming high intra-specific variability in response to drought. This information should be included in species distribution models to simulate forest responses toclimate warming and forecasted aridification.