Fig. 1
a Characteristics of the study sites across different times since last fire. Within each study site, two transects 200 m in length and approximately 500 m apart were established, and 20 plots each nurse were placed on each ones. We sampled vegetation beneath nurse individuals and nearby paired open areas. b Five study sites were surveyed in the Fereizi-Chenaran region including (a) unburned site (i.e. control site without fire occurrence), (b) 1-year sites (i.e. site with most recent fire occurring in the last year), (c) 4-year site (i.e. site with most recent fire occurring 4 years prior), (d) 10-year site and (e) 20-year site (i.e. sites with last fire occurring between 10 and 20 years prior)