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Cajander larch (Larix cajanderi Mayr.) forests of the Siberian Arctic are experiencing increased wildfire activity in conjunction with climate warming. These shifts could affect postfire variation in the density and arrangement of trees and understory plant communities. To better understand how understory plant composition, abundance, and diversity vary with tree density, we surveyed understory plant communities and stand characteristics (e.g., canopy cover, active layer depth, and soil organic layer depth) within 25 stands representing a density gradient of similarly-aged larch trees that established following a 1940 fire near Cherskiy, Russia. Understory plant diversity and mean total plant abundance decreased with increased canopy cover. Canopy cover was also the most important variable affecting individual species’ abundances. In general, tall shrubs (e.g., Betula nana subsp. exilis) were more abundant in low-density stands with high light availability, and mosses (e.g., Sanionia spp.) were more abundant in high-density stands with low light availability. These results provide evidence that postfire variation in tree recruitment affects understory plant community composition and diversity as stands mature. Therefore, projected increases in wildfire activity in the Siberian Arctic could have cascading impacts on forest structure and composition in both overstory and understory plant communities. 

In post‐fire Siberian larch forests, where tree density can vary within a burn perimeter, shrubs constitute a substantial portion of the vegetation canopy. Leaf area index (LAI), defined as the one‐sided total green leaf area per unit ground surface area, is useful for characterizing variation in plant canopies. We estimated LAI with allometry for trees and tall shrubs (>0.5 and <1.5 m) across 26 sites with varying tree stem density (0.05–3.3 stems/m²) and canopy cover (4.6%–76.9%) in a uniformly‐aged mature Siberian larch forest that regenerated following a fire ∼75 years ago. We investigated relationships between tree density, tree LAI, and tall shrub LAI, and between LAI and satellite observations of Normalized Difference and Enhanced Vegetation Indices (NDVI and EVI). Across the density gradient, tree LAI increases with increasing tree density, while tall shrub LAI decreases, exhibiting no patterns in combined tree‐shrub LAI. We also found significant positive relationships between tall shrub LAI and NDVI/EVI from PlanetScope and Landsat imagery. These findings suggest that tall shrubs compensate for lower tree LAI in tree canopy gaps, forming a canopy with contiguous combined tree‐shrub LAI across the density gradient. Our findings suggest that NDVI and EVI are more sensitive to variation in tall shrub canopies than variation in tree canopies or combined tree‐shrub canopies in these ecosystems. The results improve our understanding of the relationships between forest density and tree and shrub leaf area and have implications for interpreting spatial variability in LAI, NDVI, and EVI in Siberian boreal forests.