Turkey oak (Quercus cerris L.) is more drought tolerant and better reflects climate variations compared to pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) in lowland mixed forests in northwestern Serbia: A stable carbon isotope ratio (?13C) and radial growth approach

• Stable carbon isotope ratio (? 13 C) in latewood of tree rings is a better drought proxy than tree-ring width (TRW). Quercus cerris exhibited tolerance (<? robur . and have different ? C response to drought, while their TRW comparable. correlate more strongly with indices raw meteorological data. Tree-ring (TRW), stable intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE) data set chronologies were built for the period 1961–2000 two oak species (pedunculate – L. Turkey L.) northwestern Serbia (Vojvodina province). We focused on measured (temperature, precipitation cloud cover), events expressed by six indices, river level understand stress assess reliability climate when using or C. (and less stress) compared pedunculate oak, as manifested, respectively, negative lower iWUE values. Based generalised additive mixed model (GAMM) among studied, standardised evapotranspiration index showed best fit both C, Palmer severity exerted strong influence only TRW. It was thus concluded that responds rapidly variations