The recovery time of trees after extreme events may vary over space and among individuals, affecting the accuracy of predicting forest vulnerability to climate change. However, it remains unclear how different regional moisture conditions modulate the recovery time of trees in the long term. Here, we address this problem by examining 747 juniper trees at 24 sites on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Tree-growth recovery time after extreme events was defined when reduced tree-ring indices returned to one, and site-level recovery time was assessed by calculating the time required to reach two levels of recovery, that is, 50% and 90% of trees recovered. We found that, in general, 50% of trees have recovered within three years following extreme events in the past two centuries; it took approximately 16 years for 90% of trees to recover. The recovery time for juniper trees increased from the northeastern TP to the southern TP and showed a significant positive correlation with the local latitudinal gradient of moisture conditions, particularly for the timespan at which 90% of trees recovered. Our study demonstrates that within certain moisture conditions, juniper trees on the TP recover faster after extreme events in dryer rather than wetter conditions, suggesting that juniper trees long established in dry conditions may have developed a greater ability to adapt to extremes than those in wet conditions. These findings highlight the importance of considering different performances of individuals in evaluating recovery time. In addition, the long-term influence of moisture conditions on tree recovery should be considered in the future when assessing the vulnerability of this high-elevation forest ecosystem.

极端事件后树木的恢复时间可能因空间和个体而异，影响预测森林对气候变化脆弱性的准确性。然而，从长远来看，尚不清楚不同的区域水分条件如何调节树木的恢复时间。在这里，我们通过检查青藏高原 (TP) 上 24 个地点的 747 棵杜松树来解决这个问题。极端事件后树木生长恢复时间定义为减少的树木年轮指数恢复到 1，并通过计算达到两个恢复水平（即 50% 和 90% 的树木）所需的时间来评估站点级恢复时间恢复了。我们发现，在过去两个世纪的极端事件发生后的三年内，一般有 50% 的树木已经恢复；90% 的树木需要大约 16 年的时间才能恢复。杜松的恢复时间从青藏高原东北部到青藏高原南部逐渐增加，并且与当地水分条件的纬度梯度呈显着正相关，特别是在90%树木恢复的时间跨度上。我们的研究表明，在某些湿度条件下，TP 上的杜松树在干燥而不是潮湿条件下发生极端事件后恢复得更快，这表明在干燥条件下长期建立的杜松树可能比潮湿条件下的杜松树更能适应极端情况. 这些发现强调了在评估恢复时间时考虑个人不同表现的重要性。此外，