Fire buffers drought impacts on reproduction in a resprouting Mediterranean shrub

Fire and drought increasingly co‐occur, exposing plants to greater drought stress during post‐fire resprouting. Yet, the effect of this combination of disturbances on plant fitness remains poorly understood. Here, we examine how post‐fire resprouting influences reproductive success under drought conditions in the Mediterranean shrub Anthyllis cytisoides . We took advantage of a natural setting where, following a high‐intensity wildfire, burned (and resprouting) individuals coexisted with unburned ones. We compared flowering and fruiting performance under a post‐fire drought in both burned and unburned plants. Our results show that burned individuals were significantly less affected by drought: compared to their unburned counterparts, they had a higher probability of flowering, produced more flowers, set more fruits and seeds, and produced heavier seeds. We propose that reduced competition and enhanced physiological condition following fire may temporarily boost plant fitness despite environmental stress. These findings suggest that post‐fire resprouting may confer a short‐term reproductive advantage during drought (‘post‐fire benefit boom'). Understanding this dynamic is essential to predict plant responses under compound disturbance regimes in fire‐prone ecosystems.