Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland 1974–2000
J. B. KirkpatrickSchool of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 78, GPO, Hobart, Tas. 7001, Australia. Email: J.Kirkpatrick@utas.edu.au
Australian Journal of Botany 52(5) 597-608 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT03100
Submitted: 1 July 2003 Accepted: 24 June 2004 Published: 25 October 2004
Abstract
Few temporal studies document vegetation change in Australian temperate grassy woodlands. Floristic and structural data were collected from 68 randomly located sites in the Queens Domain, an urban grassy woodland remnant, in 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2000 and a search made for rare species. Species of conservation significance were concentrated at highly disturbed sites, whereas vegetation types of conservation significance decreased in area as a result of increases in the numbers of Allocasuarina verticillata, which caused a change in many unmown areas from Eucalyptus viminalis grassy woodland to E. viminalis–A. verticillata woodland/forest or A. verticillata open/closed forest. Structural changes were associated with changes in species composition and an increase in native-species richness. Increases in tree cover occurred where fires were most frequent, possibly as a result of the lack of mammalian herbivores. The frequencies of herbs and annual grasses were strongly affected by precipitation in the month of sampling. Half of the species that showed a consistent rise or fall through time were woody plants, approximately twice the number expected. In the dataset as a whole, species-richness variables were largely explained by varying combinations of variables related to moisture availability, altitude and the incidence of mowing. The strongest influences on species composition were the same, although slope and time since the last fire also contributed to multiple regression and generalised linear models. Compositional stability was positively related to native-species richness, whereas high levels of exotic-species richness occurred at both low and high levels of native-species richness. The maintenance of native-plant biodiversity on the Domain requires such counterintuitive measures as the maintenance of exotic trees and the control of native trees, demonstrating the contingencies of conservation management in fragmented vegetation that consists of a mixture of native and exotic species.
Acknowledgments
I thank Kerry Bridle, Michael McDonald, Bonnie Wintle, Julie von Platen, Sapphire McMullan-Fisher and Kate Chappell for help in various aspects of this project. This research was partly supported by a University of Tasmania Internal Research Grant and has been completed as part of a project funded under the Land, Water and Wool program of Land and Water Australia and the Australian Wool Initiative.
Archer S,
Schimel DS, Holland EA
(1995) Mechanisms of shrubland expansion: land use, climate or CO2? Climatic Change 29, 91–99.
Bakker JP,
Elzinga JA, de Vries Y
(2002) Effects of long-term cutting in a grassland system: perspectives for restoration of plant communities on nutrient-poor soils. Applied Vegetation Science 5, 107–120.
Bartolome J,
Franch J,
Plaixats J, Seligman NG
(2000) Grazing alone is not enough to maintain landscape diversity in the Montseny Biosphere Reserve. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 77, 267–273.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Bennett LT
(1994) The expansion of Leptospermum laevigatum on the Yanakie Isthmus, Wilson’s Promontory, under changes in burning and grazing regimes. Australian Journal of Botany 42, 555–564.
Benson JS, Redpath PA
(1997) The nature of pre-European native vegetation in south-eastern Australia: a critique of Ryan, D. G., Ryan J. S., and Starr, B. J. (1995). Cunninghamia 5, 285–328.
Briggs JM,
Knapp AK, Brock BL
(2002) Expansion of woody plants in tall grass prairie: a fifteen year study of fire and fire-grazing interactions. American Midland Naturalist 147, 287–294.
Buchanan, A (1999). A census of the vascular plants of Tasmania. Tasmanian Herbarium Occasional Publication no. 6 (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart)
Bowman DMJS
(1998) The impact of Aboriginal landscape burning on the Australian biota. New Phytologist 140, 385–410.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Clark SS, McLoughlin LC
(1986) Historical and biological evidence for fire regimes in the Sydney region prior to the arrival of Europeans: implications for future bushland management. Australian Geographer 17, 101–112.
Cooke BD
(1987) The effects of rabbit grazing on regeneration of sheoaks, Allocasuarina verticillata, and saltwater ti-trees, Melaleuca halmaturorum, in the Coorong National Park, South Australia. Australian Journal of Ecology 13, 11–20.
Eckhardt CH,
Wilgen WB, Biggs CH
(2000) Trends in woody vegetation cover in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, between 1940 and 1998. African Journal of Ecology 38, 108–115.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Fensham RJ, Fairfax RJ
(1996) The disappearing grassy balds of the Bunya Mountains, south-eastern Queensland. Australian Journal of Botany 44, 543–558.
Gilfedder, L ,
and
Kirkpatrick, JB (1995). Improving the conservation of vegetation remnants in Tasmania. In ‘Nature conservation 4: the role of networks’. pp. 613–621. (Surrey Beatty: Sydney)
Gilfedder L, Kirkpatrick JB
(1996) The distribution, ecology and management of two rare Tasmanian sedges – Schoenus absconditus Kuk. and Carex tasmanica Kuk. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 130, 31–40.
Gilfedder L, Kirkpatrick JB
(1998) Factors influencing the integrity of remnants in subhumid Tasmania. Biological Conservation 84, 89–96.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Hansson M, Fogelfors H
(2000) Management of a semi-natural grassland; results from a 15-year-old experiment in southern Sweden. Journal of Vegetation Science 11, 31–38.
Kirkpatrick JB
(1986) The viability of bush in cities – ten years of change in an urban grassy woodland. Australian Journal of Botany 35, 691–708.
Kirkpatrick JB
(1991) The magnitude and significance of land clearance in Tasmania in the 1980s. Tasforests 3, 11–14.
Kirkpatrick, JB (1999).
Kirkpatrick JB, Gilfedder L
(1995) Maintaining integrity compared with maintaining rare and threatened taxa in remnant bushland in subhumid Tasmania. Biological Conservation 74, 1–8.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Kirkpatrick JB, Gilfedder L
(1998) Conserving weedy natives: two Tasmanian endangered herbs in the Brassicaceae. Australian Journal of Ecology 23, 466–473.
Kirkpatrick JB, Marks F
(1985) Observation of drought damage to some native plant species in eucalypt forests and woodlands near Hobart, Tasmania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 119, 15–21.
Kirkpatrick JB, Nunez M
(1980) Vegetation-radiation relationships in mountainous terrain: eucalypt-dominated vegetation in the Risdon Hills, Tasmania. Journal of Biogeography 7, 197–208.
Kirkpatrick, JB ,
Gilfedder, L ,
and
Fensham, R (1988).
Kirkpatrick, JB ,
Gilfedder, L ,
Hickie, J ,
and
Harris, S (1991). Reservation and conservation status of Tasmanian native higher plants. Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage, Wildlife Division Scientific Report no. 91/2 (Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage: Hobart)
Kirkpatrick, JB ,
Barker, P ,
Brown, MJ ,
Harris, S ,
and
Mackie, R (1995). The reservation status of Tasmanian vascular plant communities. Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania, Wildlife Scientific Report no. 95/4 (Parks and Wildlife Service: Hobart)
Kirkpatrick JB,
Zacharek A, Chappell K
(2000) Testing methods for mitigation of tree dieback in Tasmanian dry eucalypt forests and woodlands. Pacific Conservation Biology 6, 94–101.
Landsberg J, Wylie FR
(1983) Water stress, leaf nutrients and defoliation: a model of dieback of rural eucalypts. Australian Journal of Ecology 8, 27–41.
Lowe, T (1999).
Lowe, T (2002).
Lunt ID
(1997) Effects of long term vegetation management on remnant grassy forests and anthropogenic native grasslands in south-eastern Australia. Biological Conservation 81, 287–297.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Lunt ID
(1998) Two hundred years of land use and vegetation change in a remnant coastal woodland in southern Australia. Australian Journal of Botany 46, 629–647.
| Crossref |
Lunt ID
(2002) Grazed, burnt and cleared: how ecologists have studied century-scale vegetation change in Australia. Australian Journal of Botany 50, 391–407.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Lunt, ID ,
and
Bennett, AF (2000). Temperate woodlands in Victoria: distribution, composition and conservation. In ‘Temperate eucalypt woodlands in Australia: biology, conservation, management and restoration’. pp. 17–31. (Surrey Beatty: Sydney)
Marsden-Smedley J, Kirkpatrick JB
(2000) Fire management in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area: ecosystem restoration using Indigenous-style fire regimes? Ecological Management & Restoration 1, 195–203.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Mast JN,
Veblen TT, Hodgson ME
(1997) Tree invasion within a pine/grassland ecotone: an approach with historic aerial photography and GIS modeling. Forest Ecology and Management 93, 181–194.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Mendel LC, Kirkpatrick JB
(2002) Historical progress of biodiversity conservation in the protected-area system of Tasmania, Australia. Conservation Biology 16, 1520–1529.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
McIntyre S, Lavorel S
(1994) How environmental and disturbance factors influence species composition in temperate Australian grasslands. Journal of Vegetation Science 5, 373–384.
Minchin, PR (1991).
Minitab (1998).
Moore, RM (1970). South-eastern temperate woodlands and grasslands. In ‘Australian grasslands’. pp. 169–190. (Australian National University Press: Canberra)
Mueller-Dombois, D ,
and
Ellenberg, H (1974).
Nunez M
(1983) Estimation of solar radiation received on slopes in Tasmania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 117, 153–159.
Prober SM
(1996) Conservation of grassy white box woodlands: rangewide floristic variation and implications for reserve design. Australian Journal of Botany 44, 57–77.
Prober SM,
Lunt ID, Thiele KR
(2002) Determining reference conditions for management and restoration of temperate grassy woodlands: relationships among trees, topsoils and understorey flora in little-grazed remnants. Australian Journal of Botany 50, 687–697.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Reid, N ,
and
Landsberg, J (2000). Tree decline in agricultural landscapes: what we stand to lose. In ‘Temperate eucalypt woodlands in Australia: biology, conservation, management and restoration’. pp. 127–166. (Surrey Beatty: Sydney)
Tilman D
(1999) The ecological consequences of changes in biodiversity: a search for general principles. Ecology 80, 1455–1474.
Withers JR, Ashton DH
(1977) Studies on the status of unburnt Eucalyptus woodland at Ocean Grove, Victoria. I. Structure and regeneration. Australian Journal of Botany 25, 623–637.
