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Climate change and extreme events, such as drought, threaten ecosystems world-wide and in particular mountain ecosystems, where species often live at their environmental tolerance limits. In the European Alps, plant communities are also influenced by land-use abandonment leading to woody encroachment of subalpine and alpine grasslands., In this study, we explored how the forest-grassland ecotone of Alpine tree lines will respond to gradual climate warming, drought events and land-use change in terms of forest expansion rates, taxonomic diversity and functional composition. We used a previously validated dynamic vegetation model, FATE- HD, parameterized for plant communities in the Ecrins National Park in the French Alps., Our results showed that intense drought counteracted the forest expansion at higher elevations driven by land-use abandonment and climate change, especially when combined with high drought frequency (occurring every 2 or less than 2 years)., Furthermore, intense and frequent drought accelerated the rates of taxonomic change and resulted in overall higher taxonomic spatial heterogeneity of the ecotone than would be expected under gradual climate and land-use changes only., Synthesis and applications. The results from our model show that intense and frequent drought counteracts forest expansion driven by climate and land-use changes in the forest-grassland ecotone of Alpine tree lines. We argue that land-use planning must consider the effects of extreme events, such as drought, as well as climate and land-use changes, since extreme events might interfere with trends predicted under gradual climate warming and agricultural abandonment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]