Plant regeneration strategies are commonly dichotomised as 'resprouter' v. 'non-resprouter', but this fails to recognise that the extent and type of resprouting following fire disturbance vary within species. Here, we report a case of widespread mortality of resprouters following a fire that burnt 98% of an 80-km² island in Bass Strait, Australia. A field survey, which assessed woody vegetation in 197 plots across the island, showed fire severity ranged from low to high, with crown defoliation occurring across 85% of the island. In total, 1826 of the 1831 woody stems in the burnt plots were top-killed. Only 7.5% resprouted, despite 89% of the stems belonging to species that have the capacity to resprout. Even in species with at least 5% resprouting, only 22% of top-killed stems resprouted. Resprouting rates were maximal (30%) at intermediate fire severity, and only 5 and 8% at the lowest and highest severity classes respectively. Our findings demonstrate the need to understand factors influencing resprouting, and to incorporate these when modelling vegetation recovery after wildfire.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Australia, Clarke Island, fire severity, interval squeeze, persistence niche
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Ecology
Research Field:	Terrestrial ecology
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Other environmental management
Objective Field:	Other environmental management not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Nicholson, AE (Ms Aine Nicholson)
UTAS Author:	Prior, LD (Dr Lynda Prior)
UTAS Author:	Bowman, DMJS (Professor David Bowman)
ID Code:	118193
Year Published:	2017
Web of Science® Times Cited:	20
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2017-07-06
Last Modified:	2019-09-26
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