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Early impacts of harvesting and burning disturbances on vegetation communities in the Warra silvicultural systems trial, Tasmania, Australia

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-19, 01:52 authored by Mark Neyland, Jarman, J
Impacts on the understorey vegetation of a range of silvicultural alternatives to clearfelling in lowland Eucalyptus obliqua wet forest were studied over a decade in the Warra silvicultural systems trial in southern Tasmania. The treatments were clearfell with understorey islands, patchfell, stripfell, dispersed retention, aggregated retention, and single-tree/small-group selection. High intensity burning, low intensity burning and no burning were variously applied as part of these treatments. Three understorey types were studied, including one wet sclerophyll community and two rainforest communities. Wherever burning occurred across the research trial, the regenerating vegetation was floristically wet sclerophyll with an incipient composition consistent with that of the pre-harvest wet sclerophyll community. Sites previously occupied by rainforest understoreys retained occasional rainforest elements, but the regeneration was overwhelmingly sclerophyll in nature. There were no consistent differences in the floristic composition of the regenerating vegetation, after burning or harvesting disturbance, that could be attributed to the silvicultural system. However, field observations and the results of a related, subsequent study suggest that, in designing silvicultural trials similar to the present one, close attention should be paid to the size of quadrats in relation to the level at which disturbance impacts are operating. The response of the vegetation at edges created by the treatments, and in the undisturbed forest beyond, supports the finding that edge effects on the vascular flora extend for less than 10 m into the undisturbed forest.

History

Publication title

Australian Journal of Botany

Volume

59

Issue

8

Pagination

701-712

ISSN

0067-1924

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

CSIRO Publishing

Place of publication

150 Oxford St, Po Box 1139, Collingwood, Australia, Victoria, 3066

Rights statement

Copyright 2011 CSIRO

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Terrestrial biodiversity

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    University Of Tasmania

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