1. Various woody species belonging to the mediterranean macchia ecosystem have been studied in respect of their strategies of water resources acquisition and water-use efficiencies, using stable isotopes analysis. 2. Evergreen species seem to depend more on rain-water utilization than the deciduous ones, which utilize ground-water almost exclusively. 3. This pattern is paralleled by the distribution of deltaC-13 values which show a greater water-use efficiency for the evergreen species vs the deciduous ones.