Post-fire recovery is modulated by the position in the realized climatic niche in three Mediterranean tree species

Understanding how climate and fire severity affect post-fire regeneration in Mediterranean vegetation is essential to assess population resilience under increasing fire and drought events linked to climate change. We examined three tree species— Pinus halepensis , Quercus ilex , and Pinus nigra —with contrasting post-fire regeneration strategies, to explore how climatic conditions within their realized niche influence canopy recovery in burned areas. Species’ climatic niches were defined using EU Forest Inventory data and 12 bioclimatic variables (1979–2018), projected onto a principal components (PCA) space. We identified each species’ niche core using kernel density estimation, and delineated wet and dry edges based on bioclimatic contributions to the first two PCA axes. Using plots from the Spanish National Forest Inventory (IFN), we selected areas dominated by the target species in IFN2 (1986–1996) that burned before IFN3 (1997–2007) and extracted pre- and post-fire canopy cover and species dominance. We modelled changes in canopy and dominance as a function of climatic distance from niche core and edges, incorporating fire severity. Pinus halepensis maintained post-fire dominance under drier conditions, while wet post-fire conditions enhanced canopy recovery. Quercus ilex increased in dominance under wetter post-fire climates. Pinus nigra was largely replaced post-fire, though wet-edge conditions occasionally supported its persistence. Fire severity affected dominance shifts in P. nigra and Q. ilex , but not in P. halepensis , reflecting its adaptation to high-severity fires. Our findings highlight how niche position and fire severity jointly shape post-fire regeneration, with implications for predicting species' resilience under climate change.