Assessing the effects of earlier snow melt-out on Alpine shrub growth: the sooner the better?

International audience21 Enhanced shrub growth in a warming alpine climate has potential far-reaching implications, 22 including soil nutrient cycling, carbon storage, or water and surface energy exchanges. Growth 23 ring analysis can yield mid-to long-term, annually resolved records of shrub growth, and 24 thereby offer valuable insights into how growth is driven by interannual climate variability. In 25 the European Alps, dendroecological approaches have shown that dwarf shrub productivity is 26 influenced by interannual variations of growing season temperature but results also point to a 27 negative effect of winter precipitation on radial growth. However, as past work lacked snow 28 cover data, links between snow cover duration, growing season length, energy availability and 29 inter-annual shrub growth remain poorly understood. 30 In this paper, we combined multi-decadal shrub-ring series from 49 individuals sampled at three 31 sites along a 600-m elevational gradient in the Taillefer massif, located in the French Alps to 32 assess growth sensitivity of long-lived and widespread Rhododendron ferrugineum shrubs to 3