## 2 Materials and Methods  
### Study Sites  
Four permanent measurement plots of different post-fire age have been established and monitored on a monthly basis since July 2019 across the _Pinus brutia_ forest ecosystem on the island of Lesvos, Greece (Figure 1). Lesvos lies in the Northeast Aegean Sea, with a typical Mediterranean climate, characterised by long xer-thermic periods and mild wet winters. Dry season begins at mid-April and ends at early October. The average annual temperature on the island is approximately 18 \({}^{\circ}\)C, with the minimum monthly temperature in January at 6.8 \({}^{\circ}\)C and the maximum monthly temperature in mid-July at 31 \({}^{\circ}\)C. Mean total annual precipitation is 645 mm with most rainfall falls in December and January [53].  
The four plots (Table 1) were established across a post-fire chronosequence (13 to 92 years old) on similar elevation (166 to 306 m asl) and soil parental material (Ophilithic bedrock), using regional forest wildfire and geological maps. Soil texture and depth are presented in Table 11. During plot establishment we tried to minimise effects from recent disturbances by avoiding areas with obvious grazing or fire signs. All plots have mild slope (under 10%) and are dominated by _P. bruttia_ with several woody species, such as _Quercus coccifera_ L., _Pistacia lentiscus_ L., _Erica_ spp. and _Cistus_ spp., found in the understory, rarely above 1 m high, and mainly present in the two younger plots.  
To determine stand age in October 2019, we collected increment cores from at least 12 trees per site. From each tree, we extracted two cores to minimise the possible impact of reaction wood. Samples were collected at breast-high with the use of a 5 mm increment borer. After surface preparation, tree-ring width was measured to 0.01 mm using the Time Series Analysis and Presentation software (TSAP-Win) [54] and a LINTAB (Rinntech Inc. Heidelberg, Germany) measuring table. All samples were visually and statistically cross-dated using TSAP-Win to identify the possible presence of missing or false rings [55]. Samples from each site were synchronised in one single mean chronology per site, the age of which determined the mean age of each stand (Table 1). Detailed information on dendrochronological analysis is provided in ([56], 'under review').  
Square plots of 900 m\({}^{2}\) were deployed and each tree above 1.3 m received a unique code for the facilitation of biometric measurements. For each tree diameter at breast height (dbh--cm) and height (H--m) were measured in July 2019 and monitored on an annual  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Plot** & **Lat 1** & **Lon 1** & **Stand Age (y)** & **Inclination \%** & **Orientation** \\ \hline AMAL & 39.02 & 26.59 & 13 & 10 & SE \\ PEV & 39.16 & 26.37 & 40 & 5 & SW \\ LML & 39.16 & 26.38 & 72 & 10 & SW \\ ACHL & 39.13 & 26.30 & 92 & 0 & - \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 1: Characteristics of the study plots. AMAL is the 13 year-old plot, PEV is the 40 year-old plot, LML is the 72 year-old plot and ACHL is the 92 year-old plot.  
Figure 1: Distribution of the four study plots across the island of Lesvos. AMAL is the 13 year-old plot, PEV is the 40 year-old plot, LML is the 72 year-old plot and ACHL is the 92 year-old plot.  
basis thereafter. The status (alive, dead) of each tree has also been recorded since the start of plot monitoring period.