Among forest ecosystems, the alpine treeline ecotone can be considered to be a simplified model to study global ecology and climate change. Alpine treelines are expected to shift upwards in response to global warming given that tree recruitment and growth are assumed to be mainly limited by low temperatures. However, little is known whether precipitation and temperature interact to drive long‐term Himalayan treeline dynamics. Tree growth is affected by spring rainfall in the central Himalayan treelines, being good locations for testing if, in addition to temperature, precipitation mediates treeline dynamics. To test this hypothesis, we reconstructed spatiotemporal variations in treeline dynamics in 20 plots located at six alpine treeline sites, dominated by two tree species (birch, fir), and situated along an east–west precipitation gradient in the central Himalayas. Our reconstructions evidenced that treelines shifted upward in response to recent climate warming, but their shift rates were primarily mediated by spring precipitation. The rate of upward shift was higher in the wettest eastern Himalayas, suggesting that its ascent rate was facilitated by spring precipitation. The drying tendency in association with the recent warming trends observed in the central Himalayas, however, will likely hinder an upslope advancement of alpine treelines and promote downward treeline shifts if moisture availability crosses a critical minimum threshold. Our study highlights the complexity of plant responses to climate and the need to consider multiple climate factors when analyzing treeline dynamics.

Forest biomass is an important component of terrestrial carbon pools. However, how climate, biodiversity, and structural attributes co‐determine spatiotemporal variation in forest biomass remains not well known. We aimed to shed light on these drivers of forest biomass by measuring diversity and structural attributes of tree species in 400‐m² plots located every 100 m along a 4200‐m elevational gradient in the eastern Himalayas. We applied structural equation models to test how climate, species richness, structural attributes, and their interactions influence forest biomass. Importantly, species richness was a stronger driver of biomass than environmental and structural attributes such as annual air temperature or stem density. Integrating the availability of energy and the demand for water, potential evapotranspiration was more strongly correlated with biomass than water availability, likely due to the strong influence of the Indian summer monsoon. Thus, interactions between climate and tree community composition ultimately control how much carbon is stored in woody biomass across bioclimatic gradients. This fundamental understanding will support predictive efforts of the forest carbon sink in this hydroclimatically important region and help preserving regional forests as a potent natural solution for climate change mitigation.