Drought sensitivity and tree growth attributes regulate growth resilience of Southeast Asian pines under extreme drought

Yang, Rao-Qiong

AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY

2026

388

Fan, ZX

Extreme droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity under climate change, posing growing threats to forest stability and carbon sequestration. Yet the relative roles of climatic conditions and intrinsic growth strategies in shaping drought resilience remain debated, particularly in monsoon-dominated tropical and subtropical regions. Here, we compiled a large tree-ring width dataset including 4418 cores from 2446 trees across 103 sites and four widespread pine species in Southeast Asia to investigate growth resilience and post-drought growth in response to extreme early growing-season droughts, and evaluated the relative importance of climate, drought sensitivity and growth attributes. Across species, radial growth was consistently constrained by early growing-season moisture availability, highlighting the importance of drought timing relative to cambial reactivation. Although species differed markedly in their extreme drought responses, most trees recovered to their mean non-drought growth levels within three years. Notably, drought sensitivity and intrinsic growth attributes (growth rate, size and age) emerged as dominant regulators of growth resistance and recovery. While long-term mean climatic conditions explained comparatively less variation in growth responses once drought sensitivity and growth attributes were accounted for. More drought-sensitive sites experienced lower resistance but stronger post-drought recovery. Our findings demonstrate that seasonal drought timing, growth sensitivity and tree growth attributes are important regulators of drought impacts and recovery dynamics in Southeast Asian pine forests. Explicitly incorporating growth attributes and growth sensitivity into forest growth assessments may improve predictions of drought impacts.