Just try it out... As far as I know (I think Kristof mentioned this somewhere) the list and tree operators use the same php functions, just with different default values for the parameters, so specifying an limitation array should work for both list and tree fetching.
You're right Claudia. For the curious ones, take a look in kernel/content/function_definition.php and search for $FunctionList['list'] and $FunctionList['tree']. The same story for list_count and tree_count.