165279 20251219174252.0 doi 10.18172/cig.6769 sideral 146740 ART-2025-146740 eng Martín Ortiz, Pedro Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0009-0008-6156-3110 Consequences of fire on vegetation composition and its influence on Leaf Area Index (LAI) distribution using multi-resolution images 2025 In recent decades, wildfires have become one of the main disturbances affecting Mediterranean forest ecosystems. Understanding how fire-affected formations recover is crucial for assessing their resilience and effectively managing potential hydrological-forest restoration measures. This study analyzes vegetation regeneration in burned areas representative of the landscape diversity of Aragón (NE Iberian Peninsula) considering (i) the type of colonizing vegetation in relation to the pre-existing one and (ii) the impact of the colonizing vegetation type on the spatial distribution of the Leaf Area Index (LAI), which is used as a proxy for the eco-physiological functionality of the affected formations. High-spatial-resolution GeoSAT-2 images andSentinel-2 L2A collections were used to generate maps of current vegetation distribution and multitemporal LAI composites, respectively. Contingency tables derived from diachronic comparisons of dominant vegetation type (before the fire and at present) and Random Forest (RF) predictive models were employed. The RF models also determined the importance of different natural factors in the spatial distribution of colonizing vegetation formations. The results highlighted the strong dependence between pre-fire and colonizing vegetation formations (χ² = 10.067) and the role of regenerative trajectories in the spatial distribution of LAI (p < 0.05). Greater regeneration was observed in areas dominated by species with active reproductive strategies (resprouting and serotiny). Additionally, in the Random Forest modeling (OOB = 21%), pre-existing vegetation emerged as the most determining factor (MDG = 600) in predicting current vegetation, surpassing fire severity and the regenerative trend of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (MDG ≈ 250), whose effects vary depending on the type of vegetation formation. Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIN-AEI/PID2020-118886RB-I00-AEI-10.13039-501100011033 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICIU/CGL2016-80783-R info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess by https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Pérez-Cabello, Fernando Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0003-4831-4060 Iranzo Cubel, Cristian Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-3359-6213 Montorio Lloveria, Raquel Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-7403-1764 3006 010 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Geograf. Ordenac.Territ. Área Análisis Geográfico Regi. 51 (2025), [24 pp.] Cuad. investig. geogr. Geographical Research Letters 0211-6820 7805581 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/165279/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 2768837 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/165279/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:165279 articulos driver 2025-12-19-14:44:18 ARTICLE