The Impact of Fire on Tasmanian Alpine Vegetation and Soils

Abstract

Observations were made across 11-40-year-old fire boundaries in Tasmanian alpine areas of varying macroenvironment and flora. Organic matter and total nitrogen in the surface soil were significantly less where the vegetation had been recently burned. There were no significant differences between recently burned and recently unburned plots in contents of phosphorus, potassium, calcium or sodium or in pH. The burned plots contained few or no gymnosperms or deciduous shrubs, the most frequent dominants of the unburned vegetation. Most other shrubs were markedly less important in the burned than in the unburned plots, although most species of bolster form were little affected by fire, and some composite shrubs were most abundant on the burned plots. Most herbaceous species had equal or greater cover on the burned plots than on the unburned plots. The burned vegetation of the eastern mountains appeared to regenerate more quickly than that of the more oligotrophic western mountains.