Journal article
Mortality and recruitment of fire-tolerant eucalypts as influenced by wildfire severity and recent prescribed fire
LT Bennett, MJ Bruce, J MacHunter, M Kohout, MA Tanase, C Aponte
Forest Ecology and Management | ELSEVIER | Published : 2016
Abstract
Mixed-species eucalypt forests of temperate Australia are assumed tolerant of most fire regimes based on the impressive capacity of the dominant eucalypts to resprout. However, empirical data to test this assumption are rare, limiting capacity to predict forest tolerance to emerging fire regimes including more frequent severe wildfires and extensive use of prescribed fire. We quantified tree mortality and regeneration in mixed-species eucalypt forests five years after an extensive wildfire that burnt under extreme fire weather. To examine combined site-level effects of wildfire and prescribed fire, our study included factorial replications of three wildfire severities, assessed as crown scor..
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Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Australian Government's Biodiversity Fund (grant number LSP-943972-876), and by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning through the Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research program. We thank Richard Loyn (formally of ARI) for leading the Biodiversity Fund application, and members of the project's Steering committee for their guidance (Jaymie Norris, Gordon Friend, Steve Leonard, Tim O'Brien, and Peter Wilcock). We also thank the following individuals for their diligent work in the field: David Bryant, Benjamin Castro, Garry Cheers, Phoebe Macak, Jessica Millett-Riley, Julio Cesar Najera-Umana, Brendan Nugent, Steve Sinclair, Geoff Suter, Arn Tolsma, Liz Wemyss. Adrian Kitchingman and Matt White conducted desktop site selection, and David Duncan and Annette Muir provided advice on the study design.