This exploratory study presents an objective and consistent approach for assessing forest structure across multiple European countries, focusing on the distributions of tree species and tree diameter at breast height (DBH) as assessed by European National Forest Inventories (NFIs) and one landscape inventory. We distinguish six structural classes, ranging from mono-specific plots with a narrow (regular) DBH distribution to multi-species plots with a wide (irregular) DBH distribution. We used tree level data on basal area, species, and diameter, from 18 countries, and harmonised the data as much as possible by adopting a common diameter measurement threshold and by scaling the different plot radii to one ha. Data from 255,418 inventory plots indicate that roughly half of the forests are dominated by a single-species, while the other half consists of multiple-species. According to our approach, the predominant structural type in the surveyed countries is characterized by single-species dominance (56%) and a narrow DBH distribution. The relatively small plot radii across inventories and the diameter threshold of 10 cm also contribute to dominance of this structural type. The single-species regular class was the most prevalent ranging from 35.8% in Switzerland to 79.7% in Spain. The second most important was the multiple-species regular class, present on 37.7% of the forest area. Although the plots are not weighed to the full forest area, these results indicate a regular forest structure on 94% of Europe's forests. The distribution of forest area per country over the categories varied only moderately. A shortcoming of a groundbased study is the challenge of harmonisation due to the different plot design of NFIs, showing a range in the plot radii from 9 to 25 meters hampering the comparison between countries. The results as presented at 0.2 degrees resolution (approximately 20 x 20 km) provide insight into forest structure in a consistent manner and can be updated in the future based on new releases of forest inventories. Although we did not study the effect of forest management on the current structure, these results are a basis to report temporal and spatial effects of management changes at this semi-high resolution, highly relevant to the EU Nature Restoration Law. We see this spatially explicit result as very promising, with advantages compared to the alternative of highly aggregated international statistics..

The onset of leaf discoloration in deciduous trees is primarily triggered by seasonal declines in temperature and photoperiod. However, severe drought conditions can induce early leaf discoloration and shedding. Early discolored European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) trees may be more susceptible to crown dieback and mortality following a drought. These persistent legacy effects of drought underlie efforts to understand the environmental drivers of early leaf discoloration but also complicate ongoing monitoring. Here, field observations of early leaf discoloration in Switzerland's European beech forests and intra-annually normalized Sentinel-2 vegetation index time series were used to model and isolate the signal of discoloration from drought legacy effects in both drought and post-drought years. To demonstrate model efficacy and examine empirical inter-and intra-annual trends in early leaf discoloration, the trained model was applied to predict May to August early leaf discoloration across Switzerland's European beech dominated forests at a 10 m resolution from 2017 to 2023. Results reveal an order of magnitude greater proportion of early leaf discoloration at the end of the drought-affected months of August 2018 (5% discolored) and August 2023 (2% discolored) as compared to the non-drought affected month of August 2019 (0.4% discolored). In 2018 and 2023, discoloration hotspots formed as early as June in Switzerland's most severely affected northwestern regions and spread rapidly in the following weeks. Efforts here establish a robust framework for disentangling seasonal drought related discoloration from legacy effects of drought and forest management forming a baseline for further investigations of biotic and abiotic early leaf discoloration drivers.

Tree recruitment forms an essential process in forest growth models as it determines the amount and composition of the next generation of trees and, hence, the provision of forest ecosystem services over long time spans. With global change and the hereby associated changes in environmental conditions and forest management adaptations, the common static tree recruitment modelling approaches have become largely obsolete and necessitated the development of more dynamic models. Limited by the availability of data for the parameterisation of tree recruitment processes, such models have only been developed for single species or national frameworks and largely failed to detect climatic influences. In this study, we developed a dynamic tree recruitment model for Europe, utilising National Forest Inventory data from 8 countries with more than 95,000 repeated plot observations and nearly 138,000 individual tree recruitment events. We investigated the effect of forest management, forest structure, soil characteristics, nutrient deposition and five groups of weather and climate variables on the quantity and the species composition of recruiting trees. The climatic groups spanned annual averages, intra annual averages, annual variability, intra annual extremes and a combination of the aforementioned groups. The model with the combination of climate and weather variables outperformed all other groups. We found distinct climatic effects on tree recruitment quantities linked to water limitations and temperature extremes. The results as such showed that tree recruitment quantities benefit from stable climatic conditions, high precipitation and suffer from high maximum temperatures. Increasing temperatures also facilitate the share of recruiting broadleaves. The recruitment species was largely determined by the lead species in a plot, indicating the importance of seed limitation. Furthermore, the results confirm the important role of forest structure in tree recruitment and enable forest managers to steer the next generation of trees. Especially multi-species stands show a clear advantage over single species stands regarding tree recruitment quantities and diverse species compositions. Our research enables dynamic and state-of-the-art recruitment simulations across forests in Europe. It presents a reproducible method that can be applied to forest simulation modelling frameworks.

Das Schweizerische Landesforstinventar (LFI) mit seiner fast 40-jährigen Messreihe erfasst repräsentative Daten über den Schweizer Wald. Seit 1983 erhebt es gut 6600 permanente Probeflächen und über 80 000 Bäume auf einem regelmässigen Netz. Wir nutzen die im Mai 2023 veröffentlichten Zwischenresultate zur fünften Inventur (LFI5; Erhebungen 2018/2022, d.h. fünf von neun Messjahren), um die langfristigen Trends bezüglich Vorrat, Zuwachs, Nutzung und Mortalität über alle Inventuren hinweg für die Schweiz und die biogeografischen Regionen darzustellen. Schweizweit nahm der Holzvorrat vom LFI1 (1983/1985) zum LFI4 (2009/2017) stetig zu, wobei ein Trend hin zu mehr Laubholz zu beobachten war. Seither blieb der Vorrat in etwa konstant bei 420 ±5 Mio. m3. Die Hälfte dieses Vorrats steht in den biogeografischen Regionen Mittelland und Alpennordflanke. Seit dem LFI2 (1993/1995) nimmt der Vorrat in der biogeografischen Region Mittelland ab und in fast allen anderen Regionen konstant zu. Eine Ausnahme bildet die Region Jura, wo die Resultate des LFI4 und die Zwischenresultate des LFI5 erstmals einen deutlichen Vorratsrückgang und einen entsprechenden Anstieg der Mortalität (im LFI: Schaftholzvolumen der Bäume, die zwischen zwei Inventuren natürlicherweise abgestorben oder verschwunden sind, aber nicht forstlich genutzt wurden) nachweisen. Während die forstlichen Nutzungsmengen seit dem LFI1 schweizweit relativ konstant bei 7–7.5 Mio. m3 pro Jahr lagen, variierte die Mortalität stark, sowohl in den biogeografischen Regionen als auch über die Zeit. Wegen der Winterstürme von 1999/2000, der Trockenjahre ab 2018 und der darauffolgenden Käferschäden waren sowohl zwischen LFI2 und LFI3 als auch zwischen LFI4 und LFI5 30–40% der Nutzungen Zwangsnutzungen. Dieses Monitoring dient als Grundlage für eine dem Klimawandel angepasste Waldbewirtschaftung. Das LFI ist somit eine wichtige Datengrundlage für Wissenschaft, Politik, Waldbesitzende, Industrie und Behörden.

Feuchte und nasse Wälder sind einzigartige Lebensräume, die besondere und schützenswerte Artengemeinschaften beherbergen. Die Schweiz weist insgesamt 21 Waldgesellschaften der Feucht-, Moor- und Auenwälder auf. In den letzten Jahrhunderten wurden die Feuchtwälder jedoch zu grossen Teilen durch Entwässerung zu Gunsten der Forst- und Landwirtschaft verändert oder gerodet. Im Rahmen der Biodiversitätsstrategie strebt die Schweiz eine Umkehr des Habitat- und Artenverlustes der feuchten und nassen Wälder durch deren Erhalt, Aufwertung und Wiederherstellung an. Im vorliegenden Dokument werden die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen zur Wiederherstellung feuchter Wälder sowie Erkenntnisse aus der Praxis in Form eines Leitfadens zusammengefasst. Der Leitfaden beinhaltet die wichtigsten Argumente, die für eine Wiedervernässung von Wäldern sprechen, eine Synthese des Wissens über die charakteristischen Standorte, Waldgesellschaften und jeweiligen Arten der feuchten Wälder, sowie Details zu möglichen Massnahmen zu deren Wiederherstellung und Förderung. Fallbeispiele aus der Schweiz geben Einblicke in die praktische Umsetzung. Zusätzlich werden rechtliche, administrative und planerische Aspekte behandelt. Die folgenden Kurzzusammenfassungen geben einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Inhalte dieses Leitfadens. [...]

Tree cores are a highly valuable scientific resource. Annual growth ring data can, for example, improve our understanding of climate change impacts and effects of environmental pollution, allow for better annual estimations of tree growth patterns and carbon storage, and help quantify dynamics and changes in forest ecosystems. The value of coring trees for research has been weighted against concerns around the potential harm coring might cause to trees. To date, there is indeed limited research accurately quantifying the potential effects of coring on tree growth and only a handful of studies assessing its influence on mortality. Consequently, many European long-term forest inventorying and monitoring programs are concerned that tree coring might bias the repeated tree measurements in permanent plots, which they rely on for assessments of states and changes of forests. In this study, we assessed the effects of tree coring on the growth and mortality of three widespread European tree species approximately 10 years after they were cored. We used repeated tree measurements from permanent research sites in Switzerland and Ukraine. In Switzerland, we assessed 35 cored and 159 uncored Norway spruce ( Picea abies ) trees as well as 147 cored and 332 uncored silver fir ( Abies alba ) trees. In Ukraine, we assessed 348 cored and 6′611 uncored European beech ( Fagus sylvatica ) trees. We found no statistical evidence that coring negatively affected the growth or mortality of the three tree species assessed. Although we cannot rule out subtle effects on tree health and wood quality, our findings do not provide any evidence that coring affects or biases repeated measurements (such as DBH measures and recording of mortality) performed on the investigated tree species. Tree coring could therefore be considered more often for routine incorporation, particularly in long-term forest inventorying and monitoring programs and initiatives.

Der Schweizer Wald beherbergt zahlreiche Baumarten mit unterschiedlichen ökologischen Ansprüchen an Licht, Nährstoffen und Klima. In der empirischen Waldmodellierung werden ähnliche Baumarten oft gruppiert, weil zu wenige Beobachtungen vorliegen, um artspezifische Modelle für Einwuchs, Wachstum und Mortalität zu entwickeln. Wir präsentieren eine neue Baumartengruppierung, die ähnliche ökologische Ansprüche und deren Einfluss auf das Wachsen und Absterben berücksichtigt.

Forests provide essential ecosystem services that range from the production of timber to the mitigation of natural hazards. Rapid environmental changes, such as climate warming or the intensification of disturbance regimes, threaten forests and endanger forest ecosystem services. In light of these challenges, it is essential to understand forests' demographic processes of regeneration, growth, and mortality and their relationship with environmental conditions. Specifically, understanding the regeneration process in present-day forests is crucial since it lays the foundation for the structure of future forests and their tree species composition. We used Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI) data covering vast bio-geographic gradients over four decades to achieve this understanding. Trees that reached a diameter at breast height of 12 cm between two consecutive NFI campaigns were used to determine regeneration and were referred to as ingrowth. Employing three independent statistical models, we investigated the number, species, and diameter of these ingrowth trees. The models were subsequently implemented into a forest simulator to project the development of Swiss forests until the mid-21st century. The simulation results showed an ingrowth decrease and a shift in its species composition, marked by a significant reduction in Norway spruce Picea abies and concurrent increases in broadleaves. Nevertheless, the pace of this change towards climatically better adapted species composition is relatively slow and is likely to slow down even further as ingrowth declines in the future, in contrast to the fast-changing climatic conditions. Hence, support through adaptive planting strategies should be tested in case ingrowth does not ensure the resilience of forests in the future. We conclude that since the regeneration of forests is becoming increasingly challenging, the current level at which ecosystem services are provided might not be ensured in the coming decades.

Evolving societal demands and accelerated ecological dynamics due to global change are rapidly altering forest ecosystems and their services. This has prompted the need for advancing forest inventorying and monitoring initatives to expand their scope, improve data collection, foster scientific understanding, and better inform policy responses. Here, we discuss the collaborative processes followed to develop an Advanced Inventorying and Monitoring (AIM) system for Swiss forests. Further, we provide the key messages that emerged from this process which can be of interest to those involved in similar processes at the national/international level. Forests are under pressure and going through rapid changes. However, current inventorying and monitoring (IM) programs are often either disjointed, too narrow in their scope and/or do not operate at fine enough temporal resolutions, which may hinder scientific understanding, the timely supply of information, fast decision making, and may result in the sub-optimal use of resources. For these reasons, there is an urgent need for Advanced Forest Inventorying and Monitoring (AIM) programs to (i) achieve expanded relevance (by augmenting data/information across ecosystem properties and trophic levels), (ii) have increased temporal resolution (by tailored data collection frequency), and (iii) make use of technological advances (by incorporating novel tools and technologies). The Advanced Inventorying and Monitoring for Swiss Forests (SwissAIM) initiative was launched in 2020 to address these needs. SwissAIM builds upon the foundation offered by the existing programs (e.g., national forest inventory, long-term forest ecosystem research, biodiversity monitoring). It aims to offer a collaborative and adaptive framework to enable integrated data collection, evaluation, interpretation, analysis, and modeling. Ideally, it will result in a more responsive system with respect to current and predicted biotic/abiotic stressors that will challenge Swiss forests. Developing such a system implies identifying the information needs of different stakeholders (e.g., science, policy, practice), related technical requirements, and governance frameworks. Here, we present (i) the main features of the SwissAIM initiative (vision, scientific questions and variables, governance and engagement), (ii) the main outcomes of the participatory design process (measurements, sampling, and plot design), (iii) the potential transferability of AIM initiatives outside Switzerland (timing, relevance, practicability), and (iv) the key messages that emerged (i.e., need for advancement, integration and transdisciplinarity, statistical underpinning). Since similar needs related to forest inventorying and monitoring are emerging throughout Europe and elsewhere, the objective of this opinion paper is to share our experience and promote a dialog with those interested in developing AIM initiatives in other countries and regions.

Dass die Artenvielfalt von der Flächengrösse abhängt, ist ein bekanntes Phänomen. Mit zunehmender Fläche steigt im Allgemeinen die Anzahl festgestellter Arten. Dieser Zusammenhang ist jedoch nicht linear. Die Baumartenvielfalt von Wäldern unterschiedlicher Grösse zu vergleichen, stellt deshalb oftmals eine Herausforderung dar. Auf der Grundlage von Daten des Schweizerischen Landesforstinventars wurde nun eine Methodik entwickelt, mit der Schätzungen zur erwarteten Baumartenvielfalt auf beliebige Flächengrössen skaliert werden können. Die Methodik wurde in erster Linie zur Verbesserung der internationalen Berichterstattung entwickelt. Nun soll sie auch der Schweizer Forstpraxis zugänglich gemacht werden – mittels einer öffentlichen Web-App.

Forests account for nearly 90 % of the world's terrestrial biomass in the form of carbon and they support 80 % of the global biodiversity. To understand the underlying forest dynamics, we need a long-term but also relatively high-frequency, networked monitoring system, as traditionally used in meteorology or hydrology. While there are numerous existing forest monitoring sites, particularly in temperate regions, the resulting data streams are rarely connected and do not provide information promptly, which hampers real-time assessments of forest responses to extreme climate events. The technology to build a better global forest monitoring network now exists. This white paper addresses the key structural components needed to achieve a novel meta-network. We propose to complement - rather than replace or unify - the existing heterogeneous infrastructure with standardized, quality-assured linking methods and interacting data processing centers to create an integrated forest monitoring network. These automated (research topic-dependent) linking methods in atmosphere, biosphere, and pedosphere play a key role in scaling site-specific results and processing them in a timely manner. To ensure broad participation from existing monitoring sites and to establish new sites, these linking methods must be as informative, reliable, affordable, and maintainable as possible, and should be supplemented by near real-time remote sensing data. The proposed novel meta-network will enable the detection of emergent patterns that would not be visible from isolated analyses of individual sites. In addition, the near real-time availability of data will facilitate predictions of current forest conditions (nowcasts), which are urgently needed for research and decision making in the face of rapid climate change. We call for international and interdisciplinary efforts in this direction.

While enhanced tree growth over the last decades has been reported in forests across the globe, it remains unclear whether it drives persistent biomass increases of forest stands, particularly in mature forests. Enhanced tree growth and stand-level biomass are often linked with a simultaneous increase in density-driven mortality and a reduction in tree longevity. Identifying empirical evidence regarding the balance between these processes is challenging due to the confounding effects of stand history, management, and environmental changes. Here, we investigate the link between growth and biomass via the negative relationship between average tree size and stand density (tree number per area). We find increasing stand density for a given mean tree size in unmanaged closed-canopy forests in Switzerland over the past six decades and a positive relationship between tree growth and stand density across forest plots-qualitatively consistent with our simulations using a mechanistic, cohort-resolving ecosystem model (BiomeE). Model simulations show that, in the absence of other disturbances, enhanced tree growth persistently increases biomass stocks despite simultaneous decreases in carbon residence time and tree longevity. However, the magnitude of simulated biomass changes for a given growth enhancement critically depends on the shape of the mortality functions. Our analyses reconcile reports of growth-induced reductions of tree longevity with model predictions of persistent biomass increases, and with our finding of trends toward denser forests in response to growth-also in mature stands.

DefinitionArt der speziellen Waldfunktionen von erheblicher lokaler Bedeutung gemäss Planungsgrundlagen (WEP, BP, andere).Falls keine Waldfunktionen ausgeschieden wurden (z.B.Funktionenkartierung),

Abstract To understand the state and trends in biodiversity beyond the scope of monitoring programs, biodiversity indicators must be comparable across inventories. Species richness (SR) is one of the most widely used biodiversity indicators. However, as SR increases with the size of the area sampled, inventories using different plot sizes are hardly comparable. This study aims at producing a methodological framework that enables SR comparisons across plot‐based inventories with differing plot sizes. We used National Forest Inventory (NFI) data from Norway, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland to build sample‐based rarefaction curves by randomly incrementally aggregating plots, representing the relationship between SR and sampled area. As aggregated plots can be far apart and subject to different environmental conditions, we estimated the amount of environmental heterogeneity (EH) introduced in the aggregation process. By correcting for this EH, we produced adjusted rarefaction curves mimicking the sampling of environmentally homogeneous forest stands, thus reducing the effect of plot size and enabling reliable SR comparisons between inventories. Models were built using the Conway–Maxell–Poisson distribution to account for the underdispersed SR data. Our method successfully corrected for the EH introduced during the aggregation process in all countries, with better performances in Norway and Switzerland. We further found that SR comparisons across countries based on the country‐specific NFI plot sizes are misleading, and that our approach offers an opportunity to harmonize pan‐European SR monitoring. Our method provides reliable and comparable SR estimates for inventories that use different plot sizes. Our approach can be applied to any plot‐based inventory and count data other than SR, thus allowing a more comprehensive assessment of biodiversity across various scales and ecosystems.

In a Europe shaped by centuries of forest management, the task of today's scientists in characterising, understanding and modelling natural forests is highly challenging. Although numerous forest reserves exist, most remain hardly comparable case studies. Contrarily, National Forest Inventories (NFIs) consist of systematically distributed sample plots with varying time since last intervention and provide representative data. These characteristics make NFIs a unique opportunity to investigate hidden natural forests. Here we propose using NFI plots free of human influence for >40 to >70 years ('latent reserves') to conduct large-scale studies on near-natural forests. We tested this original concept in Swiss forests. We characterised compositional and structural attributes of 'latent reserves' and compared them with those of managed forests to assess whether the former demonstrated more signs of naturalness than the latter. As an example of an application, we analysed the tree- and stand-level factors affecting natural tree mortality in 'latent reserves'. Up to 15.3% of Swiss NFI plots fulfilled the criteria of 'latent reserves', and most of these plots were distributed at mid- to high elevations where accessibility and management opportunities are limited. 'Latent reserves' showed more signs of naturalness than managed forests-a higher proportion of broadleaves, higher mortality rates, higher stand density and more deadwood. However, their size structure and basal area did not differ from those of managed forests, most likely because of a lower site productivity. Although 'latent reserves' were transitioning towards a natural state, more time without management might be required for these forests to become fully detached from the effects of past management, especially at high elevations. Mortality analyses in 'latent reserves' showed that species-specific tree mortality had a U-shaped response to tree size, was negatively related to tree growth and was higher when competition was stronger. Synthesis. Our findings demonstrate the potential of 'latent reserves' to study near-natural forests at the country level, and point to further opportunities for larger-scale collaborations. Investigating 'latent reserves' represents a first step towards a deeper understanding of such forests using existing long-term data and shows promise for further research in Europe.

Forest demographic processes - growth, recruitment and mortality - are being altered by global change. The changing balance between growth and mortality strongly influences forest dynamics and the carbon balance. Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (eCO2) has been reported to enhance photosynthesis and tree growth rates by increasing both light-use efficiency (LUE) and water-use efficiency (WUE). Tree growth enhancement could be translated into an increase in biomass stocks or could be associated with a reduction in the longevity of trees, thus reducing the ability of forest ecosystems to act as carbon sinks over long timescales. These links between growth and mortality, and the implications for forest stand density and self-thinning relationships are still debated. Scarce empirical evidence exists for how changing drivers affect tree mortality due to existing data and modelling limitations. Understanding the causes of observed mortality trends and the mechanisms underlying these processes is critical for accurate projections of global terrestrial carbon storage and its feedbacks to anthropogenic climate change. Here, we combine a mechanistic model with empirical forest data to better understand the causes of changes in tree mortality and the implications for past and future trends in forest tree density. Specifically, we test the Grow-Fast-Die-Young hypothesis to investigate if a leaf-level CO2 fertilization effect may lead to an increase in the biomass stock in forest stands. We use a novel vegetation demography model (LM3-PPA) which includes vegetation dynamics with biogeochemical processes allowing for explicit representation of individuals and a mechanistic treatment of tree mortality. The key links between leaf-level assimilation and stand dynamics depend on the carbon turnover time. In this sense, we investigate alternative mortality assumptions about the functional dependence of mortality on tree size, tree carbon balance or growth rate. These formulations represent typical approaches to simulate mortality in mechanistic forest models. Model simulations show that increasing photosynthetic LUE leads to higher biomass stocks, with contrasting behavior among mortality assumptions. Empirical data from Swiss forest inventories support the results from the model simulations showing a shift upwards in the self-thinning relationships, with denser stands and bigger trees. This data-supported mortality-modelling helps to identify links between forest responses and environmental changes at the leaf, tree and stand levels and yields new insight into the causes of currently observed terrestrial carbon sinks and future responses.

The response of forest productivity to climate extremes strongly depends on ambient environmental and site conditions. To better understand these relationships at a regional scale, we used nearly 800 observation years from 271 permanent long-term forest monitoring plots across Switzerland, obtained between 1980 and 2017. We assimilated these data into the 3-PG forest ecosystem model using Bayesian inference, reducing the bias of model predictions from 14% to 5% for forest stem carbon stocks and from 45% to 9% for stem carbon stock changes. We then estimated the productivity of forests dominated by Picea abies and Fagus sylvatica for the period of 1960-2018, and tested for productivity shifts in response to climate along elevational gradient and in extreme years. Simulated net primary productivity (NPP) decreased with elevation (2.86 ± 0.006 Mg C ha-1  year-1  km-1 for P. abies and 0.93 ± 0.010 Mg C ha-1  year-1  km-1 for F. sylvatica). During warm-dry extremes, simulated NPP for both species increased at higher and decreased at lower elevations, with reductions in NPP of more than 25% for up to 21% of the potential species distribution range in Switzerland. Reduced plant water availability had a stronger effect on NPP than temperature during warm-dry extremes. Importantly, cold-dry extremes had negative impacts on regional forest NPP comparable to warm-dry extremes. Overall, our calibrated model suggests that the response of forest productivity to climate extremes is more complex than simple shift toward higher elevation. Such robust estimates of NPP are key for increasing our understanding of forests ecosystems carbon dynamics under climate extremes.

Severe droughts have the potential to reduce forest productivity and trigger tree mortality. Most trees face several drought events during their life and therefore resilience to dry conditions may be crucial to long-term survival. We assessed how growth resilience to severe droughts, including its components resistance and recovery, is related to the ability to survive future droughts by using a tree-ring database of surviving and now-dead trees from 118 sites (22 species, >3,500 trees). We found that, across the variety of regions and species sampled, trees that died during water shortages were less resilient to previous non-lethal droughts, relative to coexisting surviving trees of the same species. In angiosperms, drought-related mortality risk is associated with lower resistance (low capacity to reduce impact of the initial drought), while it is related to reduced recovery (low capacity to attain pre-drought growth rates) in gymnosperms. The different resilience strategies in these two taxonomic groups open new avenues to improve our understanding and prediction of drought-induced mortality.