Long Term Post-Fire Vegetation Dynamics in North-East Mediterranean Ecosystems. The Case of Mount Athos Greece

Fire is an ecological and disturbance factor with a significant historical role in shaping the landscape of fire-prone environments. Despite large amount literature regarding post-fire vegetation dynamics, north-east Mediterranean region rather underrepresented literature. Studies that refer to early post fire years long term research are scarce. The current study conducted socially geographically isolated peninsula Mount Athos (Holly Mountain) northern Greece, it studies dynamics over period 30 since last fire. Field data were collected 11 event used identify present plant communities area, using TWINSPAN, factors affecting their distribution CART. Four Landsat (TM, ETM, OLI) images employed for calculation NDVI, which was found effective detecting intercommunity variation monitoring. includes four communities, from maquis forest common covering wide altitudinal range. results suggest affects various different way recovery differs significantly. While recover quickly after fire, maintaining composition structure, may need several before reaching pre-fire characteristics. dry climatic conditions area probably reason slow most prone communities. Given climate change expected make even drier region, like this emphasize adopt measures controlling wildfires preventing ecosystem degradation.