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Australian Journal of Botany Australian Journal of Botany Society
Southern hemisphere botanical ecosystems
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Appraising widespread resprouting but variable levels of postfire seeding in Australian ecosystems: the effect of phylogeny, fire regime and productivity

Michael J. Lawes https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2381-6147 A * , Michael D. Crisp B C , Peter J. Clarke D D , Brett P. Murphy E , Jeremy J. Midgley F , Jeremy Russell-Smith G , Catherine E. M. Nano H , Ross A. Bradstock I , Neal J. Enright J , Joseph B. Fontaine J , Carl R. Gosper K and Leigh-Ann Woolley E L
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville 3209, South Africa.

B Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia.

C School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4067, Australia.

D Botany, School of Environment and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.

E Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT 0909, Australia.

F Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, P.Bag Rondebosch, Cape Town 7701, South Africa.

G Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT 0909, Australia.

H Flora & Fauna Division, Department of Land Resource Management, Northern Territory Government, Arid Zone Research Institute, South Stuart Highway, Alice Springs, NT 0870, Australia.

I Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.

J Environmental and Conservation Sciences, Murdoch University, Perth, WA 6150, Australia.

K Biodiversity and Conservation Science, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and CSIRO Land and Water, Kensington, WA 6983, Australia.

L WWF-Australia, 3 Broome Lotteries House, Cable Beach Road E, WA 6725, Australia.


Handling Editor: Dick Williams

Australian Journal of Botany 70(2) 114-130 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT21110
Submitted: 9 September 2021  Accepted: 15 November 2021   Published: 10 February 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Postfire resprouting (R+) and recruitment from seed (S+) are common resilience traits in Australian ecosystems. We classified 2696 woody Australian taxa as R+ or not (R−) and as S+ or not (S−). The proportions of these traits in Australian ecosystems were examined in relation to fire regimes and other ecological correlates, and by trait mapping on a phylogeny scaled to time. Resprouting mapped as an ancestral trait. Postfire reseeding recruitment, while ancient, is more taxonomically restricted and has evolved independently several times. Nevertheless, both R+ and S+ are common in most clades, but negatively correlated at the ecosystem level indicating an evolutionary trade-off related to differences in the severity of fire regimes, determined in part by ecosystem productivity. Thus, R+ was associated with persistence in ecosystems characterised by higher productivity and relatively frequent surface fires of moderate to low severity (fire-productivity hypothesis). S+, the fire-stimulated recruitment by seed, occurred in ecosystems characterised by infrequent but intense crown-fire and topkill, reducing competition between postfire survivors and recruits (fire-resource-competition hypothesis). Consistently large proportions of R+ or S+ imply fire has been a pervasive evolutionary selection pressure resulting in highly fire-adapted and fire-resilient flora in most Australian ecosystems.

Keywords: crown fire regime, ecosystem productivity, fire-resilient flora, fire-stimulated recruitment, persistence niche, postfire reseeding, postfire resprouting, surface fire regime.


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