Forest-sedgeland boundaries are historically stable and resilient to wildfire at Blakes Opening in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, Australia

Bowman, David M. J. S.; Ondei, Stefania; Lucieer, Arko; Foyster, Scott M.; Prior, Lynda D.

doi:10.1007/s10980-022-01558-x

Cited by 9 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Here, we extend the study of Bowman et al [12] to investigate changes in the distribution of Scrub and Sedgeland using historical aerial photography since 1980 and in the population dynamics of shrubs at Blakes Opening burned in 2019 [12]. We expected that the Sedgeland had been invaded by shrubs and that the 2019 fire reversed this process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Evidence for both models has relied on inferences based on field surveys of vegetation patterns [9] or analysis of pollen assemblages in wetland sediments [10], with limited investigation of post-fire mortality and regeneration. Recent large landscape fires in western Tasmania have afforded the opportunity to fill this gap [11,12]. Prior et al studied permanent plots in wet Eucalyptus forest that were subsequently burned in a large wildfire in the Huon River valley, and they found that most canopy tree species were able to resist fire-kill because of a strong resprouting response when defoliated [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior et al studied permanent plots in wet Eucalyptus forest that were subsequently burned in a large wildfire in the Huon River valley, and they found that most canopy tree species were able to resist fire-kill because of a strong resprouting response when defoliated [11]. Likewise, Bowman et al [12] found that a fire that burned a Sedgeland-Forest mosaic in the Huon River valley had no effect on forest boundaries because of the very strong post-fire vegetation recovery [12]. This conclusion was further substantiated by analysis of historical aerial photography, which showed negligible change in the forest boundary over the last 70 years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire Cycles and the Spatial Pattern of the Scrub–Sedgeland Mosaic at Blakes Opening in Western Tasmania, Australia

Bowman

Ondei

Nichols

et al. 2023

Fire

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The cause of large areas of treeless Sedgeland and Scrub communities in western Tasmania, one of the wettest regions of Australia, has long puzzled ecologists, given the climatic suitability for temperate Eucalyptus and rainforests. A pervasive theory, known as the ecological drift model, is that landscape fires have created a dynamic mosaic of fire-adapted and fire-sensitive vegetation. A contrary view, known as the fire cycle model, asserts that fire patterns are a consequence, not a cause, of the mosaics, which are edaphically determined. We leveraged the opportunity presented by a large wildfire that occurred in a Sedgeland tract surrounded by Eucalyptus forest in the Huon Valley in 2019 to help discriminate between these competing models. Specifically, we sought to determine whether there was any evidence that the Sedgeland was becoming infilled with Scrub prior to the 2019 fire, and whether the fire caused the Scrub community to convert to Sedgeland. A field survey was used to assess the mortality of shrubs and their regeneration following the 2019 fire, and we used dendrochronology to determine the age of the fire-killed shrubs. We also used historical aerial photography since the 1980s to map fire scars and the distribution of Sedgeland and Scrub. We found that fire killed most shrubs in the Sedgeland and Scrub communities and initiated a cohort of shrub regeneration. Dendrochronological analysis of the fire-killed shrubs revealed that most were established approximately 40 years ago, following a fire that is apparent from aerial photography and most likely occurred around 1983. An analysis of aerial photography revealed that since 1980, the distribution of the Scrub community has remained stable, although the density of shrubs declined following the 1983 fire. The recovery of the burned Scrub areas in 1983 and the rapid regeneration of the shrubs following the 2019 fire is more consistent with the fire cycle model than the ecological drift model. These findings concord with the demonstrated stability of the Eucalyptus forest boundary at this site revealed by a separate study. The slow growth of the shrubs cautions against frequently burning Sedgelands, because it could cause the collapse of shrub populations by killing the immature cohort initiated by fire.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire Cycles and the Spatial Pattern of the Scrub–Sedgeland Mosaic at Blakes Opening in Western Tasmania, Australia

Bowman

Ondei

Nichols

et al. 2023

Fire

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“…RS provides a rich source of spatial information for WHs, and the reflective properties of features in multiple wavelengths, such as visible, near-infrared and laser, provide a fine portrayal of the different spatial hierarchy, soils, topography, etc. [82][83][84]. In particular, the advent of UAV technology, which is better adapted to complex terrain, has great advantages in areas such as hills and mountains of small to medium size.…”

Section: Keyword Frequency Statistics and Co-occurrence Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bibliometric Analysis of Spatial Technology for World Heritage: Application, Trend and Potential Paths

Chen,

Yang,

Zhao

et al. 2023

Remote Sensing

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World heritage sites are monuments and natural landscapes recognised by all humanity as being of outstanding significance and universal value. Spatial technology provides new ideas for the conservation and sustainable development of world heritage sites. Using a bibliometric analysis, this study extracted 401 relevant documents from the Web of Science database from 1990–2022. Meta information, such as abstracts, keywords of the papers were extracted and cleaned using bibliometric package and analysed the applications, partnerships and development trends of existing spatial technologies for world heritage sites. The results of the study show the “4D” characteristics of space technology in world heritage sites: (1) Development: Spatial applications in world heritage sites have gradually developed with an annual growth rate of 10.22% during the period 1990–2022. (2) Discrepancy: More than 70 per cent of countries have not been able to fully apply space technology on the ground at world heritage sites. (3) Desirability: Shared exchanges between research institutions are rare, and more cooperation and exchanges are expected, especially between transnationals. (4) Diversity: The future outlook for technology will be multidisciplinary, multi-method integrated research.

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“…Research on the fire ecology of WSF has been conducted mainly in the temperate zone in Victoria (Ashton 1981) and Tasmania (Jackson 1968;Hill and Read 1984;Prior et al 2022;Bowman et al 2023) and high-elevation, north-eastern NSW (Smith and Guyer 1983;Campbell and Clarke 2006;Knox and Clarke 2012). Little fire ecology research has been conducted in WSF and rainforest-open forest ecotones in subtropical eastern Australia, examples including Floyd (1976) and Baker et al (2022) on the NSW North Coast, and Fensham et al (2003), Williams et al (2012) and Tng et al (2012) in eastern Queensland, whereas other research had an Australia-wide perspective (Tng et al 2013;Wardell-Johnson et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire responses of flora in a sclerophyll–rainforest vegetation complex in the Nightcap Range, North Coast, New South Wales

Benwell

2024

Aust. J. Bot.

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Context Species fire responses were investigated in a mixed sclerophyll–rainforest ecosystem in the Nightcap Range, North Coast, New South Wales. Aims To examine rates of seedling recruitment and resprouting in functional and phytogeographic components of wet sclerophyll forest (WSRf), and adjacent open forest (OF) and rock outcrop shrubland (RO). Methods Species resprouting and seedling recruitment traits (fire responses) were recorded in 45 stem plots and 225 seedling subplots in WSRf, OF and RO. Species fire responses were classified, community fire-response spectra compiled and rates of seedling recruitment and resprouting in WSRf examined in relation to primary fire response, growth-form, habitat and broad functional and phytogeographic species groupings. Species size-regenerative class distribution was used to analyse population structure, fire impact, regeneration and recruitment in resprouter species that comprised most of the mesic-Gondwanan element of the WSRf flora. Key results WSRf, OF and RO habitats had distinctively different fire-response spectra. In WSRf, there was a high proportion of mesophyll resprouter species of Gondwanan origin with nil or very low seedling recruitment, a distinct component of mesophyll seeders of Indo-Malayan origin, as well as sclerophyll seeders and resprouters that also comprised most of the OF and RO floras. Resprouters comprised 75% of the WSRf flora, 50% OF and 10% pavement shrubland. Continuous size-class distributions indicated recruitment between fire events in the majority of mesophyll resprouters in WSRf. Lower total seedling density appeared to reflect inherent species traits and less canopy disturbance by fire. Large sclerophyll species forming the unburnt canopy of WSRf had very low seedling recruitment. Conclusions Different habitats (WSRf, OF and RO) and functional and phytogeographic clades in WSRf display distinctive patterns of resprouting and seedling-recruitment fire response. Fire responses of species that maintain species population and community composition are governed by fire regime, habitat variables and inherent species traits. Implications The distinctive fire-response spectrum of WSRf appears to be a direct consequence of the overlap of ‘new’ and ‘old’ floras in this broad vegetation type.

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Forest-sedgeland boundaries are historically stable and resilient to wildfire at Blakes Opening in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, Australia

Cited by 9 publications

References 52 publications

Fire Cycles and the Spatial Pattern of the Scrub–Sedgeland Mosaic at Blakes Opening in Western Tasmania, Australia

Fire Cycles and the Spatial Pattern of the Scrub–Sedgeland Mosaic at Blakes Opening in Western Tasmania, Australia

Bibliometric Analysis of Spatial Technology for World Heritage: Application, Trend and Potential Paths

Fire responses of flora in a sclerophyll–rainforest vegetation complex in the Nightcap Range, North Coast, New South Wales

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