Drought-induced dieback episodes are globally reported among forest ecosystems but they have been understudied in scrublands. Chronically-stressed individuals are supposed to be more vulnerable prior to drought which triggers death. Drought-triggered dieback and mortality events affecting Mediterranean Juniperus phoenicea scrublands were analyzed in two sites with contrasting climate and soil conditions located in Spain. The radial growth patterns of coexisting living and dead junipers,...

Understanding how different factors mediate the resistance of communities to climatic variability is a question of considerable ecological interest that remains mostly unresolved. This is particularly remarkable to improve predictions about the impact of climate change on vegetation. Here, a trait-based approach is used to analyse the sensitivity to climatic variability over 9 years of 19 Mediterranean shrubland communities located in southwest Spain.