Contrasting changes in vegetation structure and diversity with time since fire in two Australian Mediterranean-climate plant communities

Austral Ecology

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 164-174

  Gosper, Carl R ^a,b   Yates, Colin J ^a   Prober, Suzanne M ^b   Parsons, Blair C ^b,c,d  

^a DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION   (Australia)

^b CSIRO   (Australia)

^c UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

^d Outback Ecology   (Australia)

Author keywords

Fire interval; Initial floristic composition; Mallee; Senescence; Succession

Indexed keywords

CARBON SEQUESTRATION; FLORISTICS; HABITAT FRAGMENTATION; HABITAT MANAGEMENT; MEDITERRANEAN ENVIRONMENT; PLANT COMMUNITY; SENESCENCE; SHRUB; SPECIES DIVERSITY; SUCCESSION; TOPOGRAPHIC MAPPING; VEGETATION STRUCTURE;

AUSTRALIA;

EUCALYPTUS;

EID: 84858867043     PISSN: 14429985     EISSN: 14429993     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1442-9993.2011.02259.x     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. Álvarez R., Muñoz A., Pesqueira X. M., García-Duro J., Reyes O. & Casal M. (2009) Spatial and temporal patterns in structure and diversity of Mediterranean forest of Quercus pyrenaica in relation to fire. For. Ecol. Manage. 257, 1596-602.
2. Beard J. S. (1976) The Vegetation of the Newdegate and Bremer Bay Areas, WA, 2nd Ednition. Vegmap Publications, Perth.
3. Bell D. T. & Koch J. M. (1980) Post-fire succession in the northern jarrah forest of Western Australia. Aust. J. Ecol. 5, 9-14.
4. Berry S., Keith H., Mackey B., Brookhouse M. & Jonson J. (2009) Biomass Carbon Stocks in the Great Western Woodlands. Research report. ANU Enterprise Pty Ltd, Canberra.
5. Bond W. (1980) Fire and senescent fynbos in the Swartberg, Southern Cape. S. Afr. For. J. 114, 68-71.
6. Bond W. J. & Midgley J. J. (2001) Ecology of sprouting in woody plants: the persistence niche. Trends Ecol. Evol. 16, 45-51.
7. Bond W. J. & van Wilgen B. W. (1996) Fire and Plants. Chapman and Hall, London.
8. Bond W. J., Woodward F. I. & Midgley G. F. (2005) The global distribution of ecosystems in a world without fire. New Phytol. 165, 525-38.
9. Bradstock R. A. & Cohn J. S. (2002) Demographic characteristics of mallee pine (Callitris verrucosa) in fire-prone mallee communities of central New South Wales. Aust. J. Bot. 50, 653-65.
10. Bradstock R. A. & Kenny B. J. (2003) An application of plant functional types to fire management in a conservation reserve in southeastern Australia. J. Veg. Sci. 14, 345-54.
11. Brown J. M. & Hopkins A. J. M. (1983) The kwongan (sclerophyllous shrublands) of Tutanning Nature Reserve, Western Australia. Aust. J. Ecol. 8, 63-73.
12. Bureau of Meteorology (2008) Climate data online. [Cited 12 September 2008.] Available from URL:
13. Burgman M. A. (1988) Spatial analysis of vegetation patterns in southern Western Australia: implications for reserve design. Aust. J. Ecol. 13, 415-29.
14. Burgman M. A. & Lamont B. B. (1992) A stochastic model for the viability of Banksia cuneata populations: environmental, demographic and genetic effects. J. Appl. Ecol. 29, 719-27.
15. Burrows N. D. (2008) Linking fire ecology and fire management in south-west Australian forest landscapes. For. Ecol. Manage. 255, 2394-406.
16. Capitanio R. & Carcaillet C. (2008) Post-fire Mediterranean vegetation dynamics and diversity: a discussion of succession models. For. Ecol. Manage. 255, 431-9.
17. Clarke M. F. (2008) Catering for the needs of fauna in fire management: science or just wishful thinking? Wildl. Res. 35, 385-94.
18. Clarke M. F., Avitabile S. C., Brown L. etal. (2010) Ageing mallee eucalypt vegetation after fire: insights for successional trajectories in semi-arid mallee ecosystems. Aust. J. Bot. 58, 363-72.
19. Clarke K. R. & Gorley R. N. (2006) PRIMER V6: User Manual/Tutorial. PRIMER-E, Plymouth.
20. Clarke K. R. & Warwick R. M. (2001) Change in Marine Communities: An Approach to Statistical Analysis and Interpretation, 2nd edn. PRIMER-E, Plymouth.
21. Clements F. E. (1916) Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation. Publication 242. Carnegie Institute, Washington.
22. Collins S. L., Glenn S. M. & Gibson D. J. (1995) Experimental analysis of intermediate disturbance and initial floristic composition: decoupling cause and effect. Ecology 76, 486-92.
23. Cowling R. M., Rundell P. W., Lamont B. B., Arroyo M. K. & Arlanoutsou M. (1996) Plant diversity in mediterranean-climate regions. Trends Ecol. Evol. 11, 362-6.
24. Craven L. A., Lepschi B. J., Broadhurst L. & Byrne M. (2004) Taxonomic revision of the broombush complex in Western Australia (Myrtaceae, Melaleuca uncinata s.l.). Aust. Syst. Bot. 17, 255-71.
25. Cruz M. G., Matthews S., Gould J. etal. (2010) Fire Dynamics in Mallee-Heath: Fuel, Weather and Fire Behaviour Prediction in South Australian Semi-Arid Shrublands. Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre report number A.10.01. CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra.
26. Dirnböck T., Hobbs R. J., Lambeck R. J. & Caccetta P. A. (2002) Vegetation distribution in relation to topographically driven processes in southwestern Australia. Appl. Veg. Sci. 5, 147-58.
27. Egler F. E. (1954) Vegetation science concepts. I. Initial floristic composition, a factor in old-field vegetation development. Vegetatio 4, 412-8.
28. Enright N. J., Miller B. P. & Crawford A. (1994) Environmental correlates of vegetation patterns and species richness in the northern Grampians. Vic. Aust. J. Ecol. 19, 159-68.
29. Garnett S. & Crowley G. (2000) The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2000. Environment Australia, Canberra.
30. Gosper C. R., Prober S. M. & Yates C. J. (2010) Repeated disturbance through chaining and burning differentially affects recruitment among plant functional types in fire-prone heathlands. Int. J. Wildland Fire 19, 52-62.
31. Gosper C. R., Yates C. J., Prober S. M. & Williams M. R. (2011) Fire does not facilitate invasion by alien annual grasses in an infertile Australian agricultural landscape. Biol. Invasions 13, 533-44.
32. Gotelli N. J. & Colwell R. K. (2001) Quantifying biodiversity: procedures and pitfalls in the measurement and comparison of species richness. Ecol. Lett. 4, 379-91.
33. Grace J. B. & Keeley J. E. (2006) A structural equation model analysis of postfire plant diversity in Californian shrublands. Ecol. Appl. 16, 503-14.
34. Hobbs R. J. (2003) How fire regimes interact with other forms of ecosystem disturbance and modification. In: Fire in Ecosystems of South-West Western Australia: Impacts and Management (eds I. Abbott & N. Burrows ) pp. 421-36. Backhuys Publishing, Leiden.
35. Hopkins A. J. M. & Robinson C. J. (1981) Fire induced structural change in a Western Australian woodland. Aust. J. Ecol. 6, 177-88.
36. Hopper S. D. (1990) Conservation status of mallee eucalypts in southern Western Australia. In: The Mallee Lands: A Conservation Perspective (eds J. C. Noble, P. J. Joss & G. K. Jones ) pp. 21-4. CSIRO, East Melbourne.
37. Hopper S. D. & Gioia P. (2004) The southwest Australian floristic region: evolution and conservation of a global hot spot of biodiversity. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 35, 623-50.
38. Horton J. S. & Kraebel C. J. (1955) Development of vegetation after fire in the Chamise Chaparral of Southern California. Ecology 36, 244-62.
39. Hurlbert S. H. (1994) Pseudoreplication and the design of ecological field experiments. Ecol. Monogr. 54, 187-211.
40. Keeley J. E. (1986) Resilience of mediterranean shrub communities to fires. In: Resilience in Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems (eds D. Bell, A. J. M. Hopkins & B. B. Lamont ) pp. 95-112. Dr W Junk, Dordrecht.
41. Lamont B. B., Hopkins A. J. M. & Hnatiuk R. J. (1984) The flora - composition, diversity and origins. In: Kwongan: Plant Life of the Sandplain (eds J. S. Pate & J. S. Beard ) pp. 27-50. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
42. McCaw L. & Hanstrum B. (2003) Fire environment of Mediterranean south-west Western Australia. In: Fire in Ecosystems of South-West Western Australia: Impacts and Management (eds I. Abbott & N. Burrows ) pp. 87-106. Backhuys Publishing, Leiden.
43. Maher K. A., Hobbs R. J. & Yates C. J. (2010) Woody shrubs and herbivory influence tree encroachment in the sandplain heathlands of southwestern Australia. J. Appl. Ecol. 47, 441-50.
44. Miles J. (1979) Vegetation Dynamics. Chapman and Hall, London.
45. Noble J. C. (2001) Lignotubers and meristem dependence in mallee (Eucalyptus spp.) coppicing after fire. Aust. J. Bot. 49, 31-41.
46. Noble I. R. & Slatyer R. O. (1980) The use of vital attributes to predict successional changes in plant communities subject to recurrent disturbances. Vegetatio 43, 5-21.
47. O'Donnell A. J., Boer M. M., McCaw W. L. & Grierson P. F. (2011) Vegetation and landscape connectivity control wildfire intervals in unmanaged semi-arid shrublands and woodlands in Australia. J. Biogeog. 38, 112-24.
48. Oksanen L. (2001) Logic of experiments in ecology: is pseudoreplication a pseudoissue? Oikos 94, 27-38.
49. Parsons B. C. & Gosper C. R. (2011) Contemporary fire regimes in a fragmented and an unfragmented landscape: implications for vegetation structure and persistence of the fire-sensitive malleefowl. Int. J. Wildland Fire 20, 184-94.
50. Pausas J. G. & Bradstock R. A. (2007) Fire persistence traits of plants along a productivity and disturbance gradient in mediterranean shrublands of south-east Australia. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 16, 330-40.
51. Russell R. P. & Parsons R. F. (1978) Effects of time since fire on heath floristics at Wilson's Promontory, Southern Australia. Aust. J. Bot. 26, 53-61.
52. Shedley E. (2007) Fire and Biodiversity Guidelines for the Avon Basin. Avon Catchment Council and the Department of Environment and Conservation, Narrogin.
53. StatSoft Inc. (2005) STATISTICA data analysis software system, version 7.1. [Cited 7 March 2007.] Available from URL:
54. Systat Software Inc. (2006) Sigmaplot 10.0. [Cited 7 March 2007.] Available from URL:
55. Trabaud L. & Lepart J. (1980) Diversity and stability in garrigue ecosystems after fire. Vegetatio 43, 49-57.
56. Verdú M. & Pausas J. G. (2007) Fire drives phylogenetic clustering in Mediterranean Basin woody plant communities. J. Ecol. 95, 1316-23.
57. Wellington A. B. & Noble I. R. (1985) Post-fire recruitment and mortality in a population of the mallee Eucalyptus incrassata in semi-arid, south-eat Australia. J. Ecol. 73, 645-56.
58. Western Australian Herbarium (19982008)FloraBase - The Western Australian Flora. Department of Environment and Conservation, Perth. [Cited 8 April 2010.] Available from URL:
59. Weston A. S. (1985) Fire - and persistence of the flora on Middle Island, a southwestern Australian offshore island. In: Fire Ecology and Management of Western Australia Ecosystems (ed. J. R. Ford ) pp. 111-18. WA Institute of Technology, Perth.
60. Yates C. J. & Ladd P. G. (2005) The relative importance of reproductive biology and establishment ecology for persistence of a rare shrub in a fragmented landscape. Conserv. Biol. 19, 239-49.