Eucalypt growth-ring research and tree ages at Warra 17B, Southern Tasmania

Fire is an important part of the Australian environment. There has been a lot of interest in mapping fires and trying to understand how they affect the landscape. In this study, we looked at two sites in a small area in the Warra Long-Term Ecological Research site, both in coupe Warra 17B, in order to try to work out when fires last went through the sites. Even though our two sites were very close to one another, the ages of the trees were very different. Based on ring counts from Eucalyptus spp. and Phyllocladus aspleniifolius, there have been a number of fires at one site (the Upper Site) over the past 500-600 years, none of which destroyed all the trees at the site. At the other site (the Lower Site), the eucalypts were of a similar age to each other, suggesting that the most recent fire did destroy all the trees at this site, with eucalypts then starting to grow before P. aspleniifolius and N. cunninghamii. We also examined the relationship between ring widths of Phyllocladus aspleniifolius and local temperature and rainfall. Ring widths seem to be more related to minimum temperature than maximum temperature or rainfall. The relationship with minimum temperature was negative.