Conclusions
Results across the studied conifer species growing in a common
environment of semi-arid area indicate that
drought
tolerance rather than efficiencies of resource acquisition are more
important for tree growth as quantified by tree-ring analyses.
Physiological characteristics reflecting higher resource acquisition
(intrinsic instantaneous water and carbon flux capacity) showed
significant negative correlations with drought resistance and resilience
to extreme drought events that is underlain by an association between
high hydraulic efficiency and small hydraulic safety margin. Results of
this study suggest that hydraulic safety margin can be used as
importance references in predicting interspecific variations in radial
growth responses to drought events in water-limited environments, which
would also shed light on the prediction of inter-specific variations in
tree growth performances in a warming and drying world of the future.