Journal article
Radiocarbon Dating Informs Tree Fern Population Dynamics and Disturbance History of Temperate Forests in Southeast Australia
M Fedrigo, SB Stewart, S Kasel, V Levchenko, R Trouvé, CR Nitschke
Radiocarbon | CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS | Published : 2019
DOI: 10.1017/RDC.2018.119
Abstract
Tree ferns are slow-growing and long-lived components of temperate forests; however, these characteristics make determining size-age and population dynamics through mensuration approaches problematic while dendroecological approaches cannot be used. In this study, we use radiocarbon (14C) dating of Cyathea australis and Dicksonia antarctica to (1) determine their age-to-size relationships, (2) reconstruct the age distribution of tree fern species, and (3) test if predicted ages align with the ages of the co-occurring tree community and observed disturbance history. We used the best age-size models to reconstruct the population structure of tree ferns sampled in five paired rainforest and old..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This research was undertaken with approval by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) under research permit numbers 10006440 and 10006691. The work was funded by the DELWP Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research program (IFER C2016-19:05) as well as the CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship program. Tree fern 14C dating was funded by the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering under award numbers ALNGRA 15038 and ALNGRA 14033 with additional in kind contributions from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. We would like to thank those who contributed to data collection and processing, including B. Smith, B. Minnis, T. Fairman, M. Chick, D. Navarrete. We would also like to acknowledge Cristina Aponte, Lauren T. Bennett, Stephen H. Roxburgh, and David Cantrill for their contributions. We thank the editor and four anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that improved the manuscript.