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The legacy of mid-Holocene fire on a Tasmanian montane landscape

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 07:56 authored by Fletcher, MS, Wolfe, BB, Whitlock, C, Pompeani, DP, Heijnis, H, Haberle, SG, Gadd, PS, David BowmanDavid Bowman

Aim: To assess the long-term impacts of landscape fire on a mosaic of pyrophobic and pyrogenic woody montane vegetation.

Location: South-west Tasmania, Australia.

Methods: We undertook a high-resolution multiproxy palaeoecological analysis of sediments deposited in Lake Osborne (Hartz Mountains National Park, southern Tasmania), employing analyses of pollen, macroscopic and microscopic charcoal, organic and inorganic geochemistry and magnetic susceptibility.

Results: Sequential fires within the study catchment over the past 6500 years have resulted in the reduction of pyrophobic rain forest taxa and the establishment of pyrogenic Eucalyptus-dominated vegetation. The vegetation change was accompanied by soil erosion and nutrient losses. The rate of post-fire recovery of widespread rain forest taxa (Nothofagus cunninghamii and Eucryphia spp.) conforms to ecological models, as does the local extinction of fire-sensitive rain forest taxa (Nothofagus gunnii and Cupressaceae) following successive fires.

Main conclusions: The sedimentary analyses indicate that recurrent fires over several centuries caused a catchment-wide transition from pyrophobic rain forest to pyrophytic eucalypt-dominated vegetation. The fires within the lake catchment during the 6500-year long record appear to coincide with high-frequency El Niño events in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, signalling a potential threat to these highly endemic rain forests if El Niño intensity amplifies as predicted under future climate scenarios.

Funding

Australian Research Council

History

Publication title

Journal of Biogeography

Volume

41

Pagination

476-488

ISSN

0305-0270

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Place of publication

9600 Garsington Rd, Oxford, England, Oxon, Ox4 2Dg

Rights statement

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Natural hazards not elsewhere classified

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