Canopy seed survival through extreme fire in non‐serotinous conifers: An unexpected source of forest resilience

Across much of the semiarid conifer forests of western North America ("dry conifer forests"), the dominant tree species are non-serotinous, lack soil seedbanks, and rarely disperse seeds much farther than 100 m, so tree regeneration in large, high-severity burned patches is expected to be highly seed-limited. Conifer seedlings do, however, sometimes establish at high densities deep within high-severity patches in these forests, implying that seeds can sometimes survive intense wildfire even when all overstory trees die. Does seed survival in the canopies of non-serotinous trees provide an unexpected source of forest resilience? To answer this question, we surveyed tree survival, fire severity, and seedling abundance across two very large wildfires in the first year after fire. Several of the study species had a good seed cone production year at the time of the fires. We stratified many of our plots deep within high-severity patches far from surviving trees, where existing models predict regeneration failure due to lack of viable seeds. Contrary to such expectations, we found that conifer seedling densities in these areas were generally far greater than needed to replace the fire-killed stand and sometimes approached seedling densities observed near surviving trees. Seedling densities in high-severity areas far from surviving trees correlated negatively with local burn intensity (canopy foliage consumption), supporting the idea that the seeds originated locally and highlighting a critical driver of post-fire recovery that is easily missed by traditional surveys conducted >2 years following fire. Seedling density was also strongly associated with burn date, suggesting that persistence of viable canopy seeds depends on synchrony between wildfire and cone ripening dates. Together, our results demonstrate that under the right conditions, canopy seed survival can lead to dense seedling establishment across large severely burned areas and may substantially support the resilience of dry conifer forests to the uncharacteristically severe fires that are becoming increasingly prevalent in this system.