Wildfires serve a paradoxical role in landscapes—supporting biodiversity and nutrient cycling while also threatening ecosystems and economies, especially as climate change intensifies their frequency and severity. This study investigates the impact of wildfires and vegetation recovery in the Bosco Difesa Grande forest in southern Italy, focusing on the 2017 and 2021 fire events. Using Google Earth Engine (GEE) accessed in January 2025, we applied remote sensing techniques to assess burn severity and post-fire regrowth. Sentinel-2 imagery was used to compute the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI); burn severity was derived from differenced NBR (dNBR), and vegetation recovery was monitored via differenced NDVI (dNDVI) and multi-year NDVI time series. We uniquely compare recovery across four zones with different fire histories—unburned, single-burn (2017 or 2021), and repeated-burn (2017 and 2021)—providing a novel perspective on post-fire dynamics in Mediterranean ecosystems. Results show that low-severity zones recovered more quickly than high-severity areas. Repeated-burn zones experienced the slowest and least complete recovery, while unburned areas remained stable. These findings suggest that repeated fires may shift vegetation from forest to shrubland. This study highlights the importance of remote sensing for post-fire assessment and supports adaptive land management to enhance long-term ecological resilience.

Wildfires serve both ecological and destructive roles—supporting biodiversity and nu-trient cycling while also threatening ecosystems and economies, especially as climate change drives increases in fire frequency and intensity. This study investigates the impact of wildfires and subsequent vegetation recovery in the Bosco Difesa Grande forest in southern Italy, focusing on the 2017 and 2021 fire events. Using Google Earth Engine (GEE), remote sensing techniques were applied to assess burn severity and post-fire re-growth. The analysis utilized Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Sentinel-2 imagery. Burn severity was classified through differenced NBR (dNBR), while vegetation recovery was monitored via differ-enced NDVI (dNDVI) and multi-year NDVI time series. Results show that low-severity zones recovered more quickly than high-severity areas, which often failed to regain pre-fire vegetation levels. These findings suggest a potential shift from forested areas to shrubland or mixed vegetation in severely burned zones. Key recovery influencers in-clude climate variability, soil erosion, and repeated fire exposure. This study highlights the value of remote sensing for post-fire assessment and emphasizes the need for adaptive land management and ecological restoration strategies to support long-term ecosystem resilience in Mediterranean fire-prone landscapes.

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The Mojave Desert of the American West is characterized by plant species that reflect a unique mixture of winter precipitation and summer monsoon climate. Currently, the Mojave Desert experiences a strong summer monsoonal pattern with weak winter precipitation. Data from pollen and packrat midden analyses have revealed a history of Mojave Desert vegetation during the transition from the late Pleistocene to late Holocene (~17500 Cal. years B.P. to ~ 1200 Cal. years B.P.) that highlight a summer dominated monsoonal pattern, similar to those in the greater American Southwest. We compare pollen data from a lava tube in the Cima volcanic field, located in south-central region of the Mojave Desert, with plant macrofossil data from several woodrat midden localities in the region. The record for the Cima volcanic field reveals a vegetation history spanning the last ~ 8300 Cal. years B.P., with data from ancient woodrat middens detailing the record from ~17500 Cal. years B.P. to 7,800 Cal. years B.P. A Bryson macro-physical climate model for the transition from the late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene was created and compared to our findings to assess possible relationships between climatic variations and the arrival of diagnostic plant species within the Mojave Desert.