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# Hydraulic traits govern opposing range shifts of montane trees under warming

## Details

**Authors** Zhang et al.

**Year** 2026

**Publisher** Nature Climate Change

**Discipline** Ecology

**Secondary disciplines** Climatology

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02726-6) 
10.1038/s41558-026-02726-6

## In authors' words

### What they found (results)

Analyzing tree-ring records from over 121,000 trees across 45 species and 3,057 global forest sites, the authors found warming pushes species with efficient water-transport traits to higher, cooler elevations while driving drought-tolerant species to lower, drier elevations — opposite range-shift directions under the same warming trend.

## Commentary

### In short

The causal effect of a single driver (warming) on an outcome (range-shift direction) is not fixed but is routed through which relationship-path a species falls on, and that routing is only visible once species are sorted into distinct trait-based categories.

**Patterns it shows** D, R

**Added** 2026-08-14

**How to cite this** Zhang et al. (2026). Hydraulic traits govern opposing range shifts of montane trees under warming. Nature Climate Change.