The results indicate that the factors favoring Aleppo pine regeneration do not always coincide with those driving the recovery of shrublands and other woody species.
A new scientific study reveals that Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) forests in Ribera d’Ebre have regenerated well after the large wildfire in La Torre de l’Espanyol in 2019, which burned 5,000 hectares. The research, published in Journal of Vegetation Science, concludes that the natural regeneration of these Mediterranean forests depends mainly on topography and the pre-fire forest cover, and raises new questions about the effects of climate change on their resilience.
The study was carried out within the Forest Functioning and Dynamics research group, part of the Multifunctional Forest Management program at the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), led by Lluís Coll, professor at the University of Lleida and researcher at the Joint Research Unit CTFC-AGROTECNIO. Two years after the fire, the team quantified the number of Aleppo pine seedlings and inventoried all woody species present in 72 experimental plots of 10 × 10 meters distributed within the burned perimeter. In addition, they assessed factors such as fire severity, slope orientation, and historical land uses.
The results show that Aleppo pine regeneration is higher on north-facing slopes, on gentle terrain, and in areas where pre-fire tree density was greater. In contrast, shrub and scrubland cover — which also plays a key role in the forest’s ecological recovery — is higher on south-facing slopes and is more affected by fire severity and historical land uses. This highlights that the factors explaining Aleppo pine regeneration are not the same as those conditioning the recovery of other woody species.
According to Mara Paneghel (PhD student under a Marie Curie Iberus Talent contract) and Judith Solé (master’s student and responsible for the fieldwork), first authors of the article, “the results confirm the strong ability of Aleppo pine to establish after a fire, but they also show seedling densities lower than those that were historically common.” This variability could be linked to the impact of climate change, with more frequent droughts and harsher conditions that hinder seedling establishment.
Nevertheless, the researchers stress that in this case, regeneration has been sufficiently good to rule out, in general terms, the need for large-scale restoration actions. “The study provides useful tools for forest managers: it helps identify the areas where regeneration may be more challenging in the case of future fires, and therefore where special attention may be needed,” highlights Coll.
While the results offer an encouraging perspective on the remarkable regenerative capacity of Mediterranean forests (and Aleppo pine in particular), they also warn that this resilience is not unlimited and that more research will be needed to understand to what extent climate change may be reducing the density and recovery capacity of these key ecosystems.
The article is part of Paneghel’s doctoral thesis and is framed within the VULNIFOR project, funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (MICINN), and the ADAPTAFOR research group (University of Lleida and JRU CTFC-AGROTECNIO).
More information: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvs.70062
Last modified: 3 September 2025
