The admixture of

Introduction: Forests are threatened by increasingly severe and more frequent drought events worldwide. Mono-specific forests, developed as a consequence of widespread management practices established early last century, seem particularly susceptible to global warming and drought compared with mixed-species forests. Although, in several contexts, mixed-species forests display higher species diversity, higher productivity, and higher resilience, previous studies highlighted contrasting findings, with not only many positive but also neutral or negative effects on tree performance that could be related to tree species diversity. Processes underlying this relationship need to be investigated. Wood anatomical traits are informative proxies of tree functioning, and they can potentially provide novel long-term insights in this regard. However, wood anatomical traits are critically understudied in such a context. Here, we assess the role of tree admixture on Methods: Three monocultural plots of Results: The results highlighted that anatomical wood density was one of the most sensitive traits to detect tree responses to climatic conditions and drought under different climate and forest types. Inter-specific facilitation mechanisms were detected in the admixture between Discussion: Our findings suggest that the admixture between