The future performance of the widely abundant European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) across its ecological amplitude is uncertain. Although beech is considered drought-sensitive and thus negatively affected by drought events, scientific evidence indicating increasing drought vulnerability under climate change on a cross-regional scale remains elusive. While evaluating changes in climate sensitivity of secondary growth offers a promising avenue, studies from productive, closed-canopy forests suffer from knowledge gaps, especially regarding the natural variability of climate sensitivity and how it relates to radial growth as an indicator of tree vitality. Since beech is sensitive to drought, we in this study use a drought index as a climate variable to account for the combined effects of temperature and water availability and explore how the drought sensitivity of secondary growth varies temporally in dependence on growth variability, growth trends, and climatic water availability across the species' ecological amplitude. Our results show that drought sensitivity is highly variable and non-stationary, though consistently higher at dry sites compared to moist sites. Increasing drought sensitivity can largely be explained by increasing climatic aridity, especially as it is exacerbated by climate change and trees' rank progression within forest communities, as (co-)dominant trees are more sensitive to extra-canopy climatic conditions than trees embedded in understories. However, during the driest periods of the 20th century, growth showed clear signs of being decoupled from climate. This may indicate fundamental changes in system behavior and be early-warning signals of decreasing drought tolerance. The multiple significant interaction terms in our model elucidate the complexity of European beech's drought sensitivity, which needs to be taken into consideration when assessing this species' response to climate change.

Applied Vegetation Ecology Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources University of Freiburg 79106 Freiburg Germany

Biological and Environmental Sciences University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA Scotland UK

Chair of Forest Growth and Woody Biomass Production TU Dresden Dresden Germany

Climate Service Center Germany Helmholtz Zentrum Hereon Fischertwiete 1 20095 Hamburg Germany

DendroLab Dept of Natural Resources and Environmental Science University of Nevada Reno NV 89557 USA

Departamento de Sistemas y Recursos Naturales Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Montes Forestal y del Medio Natural Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria s n 28040 Madrid Spain

Departamento de Sistemas y Recursos Naturales Universidad Politécnica de Madrid 28040 Madrid Spain

Department of Agricoltural Forest and Food Sciences University of Turin Largo Paolo Braccini 2 10095 Grugliasco TO Italy

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences University of Pavia Via S Epifanio 14 1 27100 Pavia Italy

Department of Forestry Agricultural University Tirana Tirana Albania

Department of Geography and Planning School of Environmental Sciences University of Liverpool Liverpool United Kingdom

Department of Geography Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Mainz Germany

Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark

Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark; Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Forestry in Southern China of Jiangsu Province Nanjing Forestry University Nanjing 210037 China

Dpto de Geografía y Ordenación del Territorio IUCA Universidad de Zaragoza C Pedro Cerbuna s n 50009 Zaragoza Spain

Ecological Botanical Garden University of Bayreuth 95447 Bayreuth Germany

Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Kamycka 129 Praha 6 Suchdol 16521 Czech Republic

Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering Department of Forest Engineering Forest Management Planning and Terrestrial Measurements Transilvania University of Braşov Braşov Romania

Forest Biometrics Laboratory Faculty of Forestry Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava Universitatii street no 13 Suceava RO720229 Romania

Forest is Life ULiège Passage des Déportés 2 B 5030 Gembloux Belgium

Institute for Botany and Landscape Ecology University Greifswald 17487 Greifswald Germany

Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 2 Gagarin Street 1113 Sofia Bulgaria

Institute of Forest Ecology University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna Austria

Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología CSIC Avda Montañana 1005 50080 Zaragoza Spain

National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry Marin Dracea 13 Closca street Brasov Romania

National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry Marin Dracea 13 Closca street Brasov Romania; Center for Mountain Economy Vatra Dornei Romania

Nature Rings Environmental Research and Education 55118 Mainz Germany

Plant Ecology University of Goettingen 37073 Goettingen Germany

Plant Ecology University of Goettingen 37073 Goettingen Germany; Applied Vegetation Ecology Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources University of Freiburg 79106 Freiburg Germany

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL 8903 Birmensdorf Switzerland

Technical University of Munich TUM School of Life Sciences Ecoclimatology Hans Carl v Carlowitz Platz 2 85354 Freising Germany

Technical University of Munich TUM School of Life Sciences Land Surface Atmosphere Interactions Hans Carl v Carlowitz Platz 2 85354 Freising Germany

The National Museum of Denmark Environmental Archaeology and Materials Science 1 C Modewegs Vej 11 DK 2800 Kgs Lyngby Denmark

Université de Lorraine AgroParisTech INRAE Silva F 54000 Nancy France

University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry Belgrade Serbia

University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli via Vivaldi 43 8100 Caserta Italy

University of Forestry Dendrology Department Forest Faculty Sofia Bulgaria

University of Greifswald Experimental Plant Ecology Soldmannstraße 15 17498 Greifswald Germany

University of Hohenheim Institute of Biology Garbenstraße 30 70599 Stuttgart Germany

University of Ljubljana Biotechnical Faculty Department of Wood Science and Technology Jamnikarjeva 101 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna Austria

Weihenstephan Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences Department of Forestry Hans Carl v Carlowitz Platz 3 85354 Freising Germany

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