“…In the central part of the species distribution in Europe, i.e., in a transition zone from boreal to temperate forests and toward the south of its distributional range, winter or winter-spring temperatures mainly and positively influence Scots pine growth (RW: Pärn, 2002;Hordo et al, 2011;Balanzategui et al, 2018;Metslaid et al, 2018;Matisons et al, 2019;Harvey et al, 2020;EBI: Seftigen et al, 2020). In addition to temperature, moisture availability has also been documented as a growth-limiting factor (RW: Helama and Lindholm, 2003;Vitas, 2004Vitas, , 2006Erlickytė and Vitas, 2008;Drobyshev et al, 2011;Düthorn et al, 2013;Bose et al, 2020;RW and EBI: Seftigen et al, 2020). At the southern distribution margin, plant water availability (RW: Bogino et al, 2009;Buras et al, 2018a), precipitation (RW: Sánchez-Salguero et al, 2015a), and winter, spring, or summer temperatures (RW: Herrero et al, 2013;Sánchez-Salguero et al, 2015a,b) modulate Scots pine growth.…”