Ecosystem memory of wildfires affects resilience of boreal mixedwood biodiversity after retention harvest

The extent to which past states influence present and future ecosystem characteristics (ecosystem memory (EM)) is challenging to assess because signals of past ecological conditions fade with time. Using data about seven different taxa, we show that ecological gradients initiated by wildfires up to three centuries earlier affect biotic recovery after variable retention harvest in the boreal mixedwood forest. First, we show that fire history over the last 300 years is reflected in pre-harvest species-specific stand basal area (BA), with longer times since high severity fire associated with proportionally higher BA of shade-tolerant softwood species than shade-intolerant hardwoods. Second, using patterns in the BA of pre-harvest tree species we link fire history to species composition of pre-harvest assemblages of bryophytes, herbs, shrubs, regenerated trees, songbirds, spiders and carabid beetles. Finally, we use variance partitioning to compare the importance of species-specific pre- ve...