Climate variability and resilience remain gaps in tree research, challenged by the interacting factors in climate change, long-term resilience and the influence of evolutionary legacy effects. In a multidisciplinary approach using 90-year (1930–2020) climate-growth data, we investigated the dynamics of climate variability on growth and resilience of the tropical African baobab (Adansonia digitata) at the range edge in climate-variable, southeast Africa. The main driver of climate variability, ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation), triggered 83% of droughts exacerbated by positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD) events. Growth over 90 years was positively correlated with maximum temperature and increased after the 1976–1977 Global Warming Shift. The influence of warming was compromised by climate variability and extreme events. Although growth is a measure of adaptive capacity, accelerated growth over the past 20 years contrasted with dehydration, canopy dieback and a novel Didymella pathogen. Resilience was contingent on high genetic diversity (polyploidy and heterozygosity) and Neotropical legacy effects of stem water storage and longevity trade-offs of low growth, recruitment and reproduction. The evolution of resprouting in disturbed, fire-prone ecosystems and bark regeneration increased recovery from disturbance. As resource opportunists, baobabs adopted a fast-slow survival strategy. Rainfall and warming enhanced growth while low and variable rainfall favoured a conservative, low growth-higher survival strategy. Low rainfall, climate extremes and topography increased mortality risk. Mortality was higher at lower elevations on site and regionally. Low growth may conserve the baobab in climate warming but the southern hemisphere tropics is one of two identified global hotspots with amplified hot years. The heightened disturbance predicted from increased climate variability, hot droughts and landfalling tropical cyclones magnifies mortality risk for “Africa’s favourite tree.”
The natural regeneration of seedlings is a key factor for forest succession. Nevertheless, studies explaining the mechanism of growth and biomass allocation in regenerated seedlings after disturbance are lacking. Therefore, we measured the growth, biomass accumulation, and biomass allocation in current-age seedlings of Pinus massoniana after selective logging (logging of competitive trees, LCT; logging of inferior trees, LIT; and unlogged control, CK), and established structural equation models (SEMs) among the spatial structure characteristic indexes of the stand, environmental factors, and biomass allocation in different organs. As compared to the CK, the mingling index (M), uniform angle index (W), opening degree (O), soil organic carbon (SOC), available nitrogen (SAN), available phosphorus (SAP), available potassium (SAK), and bulk density (SBD) significantly increased (p < 0.05), while the competition index (CI) and neighborhood comparison (U) significantly decreased after logging (p < 0.05). After the LCT, seedling branch biomass improved, with an increase in the ground-diameter, crown-root ratio, and seedling quality index. More biomass was allocated to foliage and roots by an increase in the height and height-diameter ratio under the LIT. In the CK, increasing stem biomass helped the seedlings absorb and utilize more light. The Pearson correlation coefficient showed that biomass allocation to organs was independent, and seedlings adopted the strategies of heterogeneous adaptation and growth, thereby resulting in the separation of the allocation patterns among the organs. As per the redundancy analysis (RDA), CI was the main factor in biomass allocation. Environmental factors had direct effects on biomass allocation to organs, while the stand spatial structure characteristic indexes had indirect effects on biomass allocation based on SEMs. In summary, the LCT had significant, albeit indirect, effects on SOC, SAN, and SBD by reducing the CI for the regeneration and growth of seedlings in the stand, which was of great significance to the sustainable development of the forest stand of P. massoniana.