Fig. 1. Relationship between growth rate and maximum lifespan derived from tree rings.

a Mean early growth rate (mean ring width over first 10 years) versus maximum lifespan for 110 species, and estimated early growth rate-lifespan relationship (red line) using negative exponential major axis regression. b Early growth rate versus age for Picea mariana, and estimated early growth rate-lifespan relationship (red line) using negative exponential 95^th quantile regression. c Estimated relative early growth rate-lifespan relationships within species for five angiosperm and gymnosperm species (for individual plots of these species see Supplementary Fig. 4). Relative early growth and relative lifespan were calculated as the ratio of the early growth rate or age of each tree relative to the maximum growth or age for each species. d Histogram of the exponential decay constant of relative early growth rate vs. relative lifespan relationships for 82 species with sufficiently large datasets.