Research overview: post-fire vegetation recovery and prey for cats

After fire, vegetation regrows through successional stages that determine when and how prey and predators return. This overview surveys how post-fire recovery shapes habitat quality for cats, the flush of forage that can boost herbivore prey, the loss of cover that affects stalking predators, and the long timescales over which forest-dependent species recolonize. It reviews how fire frequency interacts with recovery to set the landscape mosaic. The synthesis frames post-fire succession as a dynamic that can be good or bad for cats depending on species and timing, explaining why understanding the trajectory of recovery, not just the immediate burn, is needed to judge whether more frequent climate-driven fire helps or harms felid habitat.