Climate response of a glacial relict conifer across its distribution range is invariant in space but not in time.

Climate change impacts on forest trees will be particularly severe for relict species endemic to the subalpine forest, such as Pinus cembra in the Alps and Carpathians. Most current knowledge about the response of this species to climate comes from tree-ring width analysis. However, this approach cannot perform in-depth and highly time-resolved analysis on the climate influence on specific growth processes and xylem functions.