Increased forest vulnerability is being reflected as more widespread and severe drought-
induced decline episodes. In particular, the Mediterranean area is revealing a high …

• Cork oak mortality is a recurrent problem in southwestern Portugal. Despite the perception
of increasingly visible damage in oak woodlands on drought-prone sites, the role of the …

Assessing the vulnerability of forest ecosystems in the climate change context is a
challenging task as the mechanisms that determine this vulnerability cannot be directly …

Severe droughts may increase physiological stress on long-lived woody vegetation,
occasionally leading to rapid defoliation and progressive increase in mortality of overstorey …

Climate change is one of the major challenges for ecosystem conservation. One of the most
vulnerable areas to climate change is the Mediterranean Basin which is expected to suffer …

Forest decline induced by climate change is a global phenomenon that affects many tree
species, mainly in drought-prone areas as the Mediterranean region. In southern Italy …

Key message The retrospective analysis of wood anatomical features evidences how a long-
term deterioration of hydraulic performance and carbon use portend drought-induced …

Climate warming-related drought could become a major driver of large-scale forest dieback.
However, little is known about how past management legacies modulate the climate-growth …

Drought stress causes forest dieback that is often explained by two interrelated mechanisms,
namely hydraulic failure and carbon starvation. However, it is still unclear which functional …

Abstract Key message Coexisting Mediterranean oaks are differently predisposed to heat-
and drought-induced dieback as a function of height, prior growth, wood anatomy, and …