Climate change and other factors influencing the decline of the Tasmanian cider gum (Eucalyptus gunnii)
J. A. Calder A and J. B. Kirkpatrick A BA School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 78, GPO, Hobart, Tas. 7001, Australia.
B Corresponding author. Email: J.Kirkpatrick@utas.edu.au
Australian Journal of Botany 56(8) 684-692 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT08105
Submitted: 16 June 2008 Accepted: 30 October 2008 Published: 15 December 2008
Abstract
Global climatic change has been strongly implicated in the decline of many species. However, other processes can contribute towards the extinction risk of these species. Could management of these processes arrest or slow climatically related decline? We test the relationship between climate change, and other potential threatening factors, and the decline of Eucalyptus gunnii, a tree endemic to the subalpine regions of Tasmania, Australia. Through observing the spatial patterns of both climatic change and dieback, we found there was a stronger pattern of increasing droughts in the eastern part of the species range, the region which also displayed the worst dieback. A time series of aerial photographs revealed that the most severe drought periods in the last several decades have coincided with the most rapid tree decline. However, the sites that suffered the worst dieback were also more heavily used for stock grazing, a factor which had a stronger spatial relationship with tree decline than climate. Other factors were also implicated in the decline, including possum browsing. The good health of some populations in the most climatically stressed areas suggests that the amelioration of non-climatic stresses could be effective in maintaining the health of the surviving populations.
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Brad Potts for advice and Dom Jaskierniak for help with climatic interpolation.
Battisti A,
Stastny M,
Netherer S,
Robinet C,
Schopf A,
Roques A, Larsson S
(2005) Expansion of geographic range in the pine processionary moth caused by increased winter temperatures. Ecological Applications 15, 2084–2096.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Boardman R
(1994) Some possible effects of climate change on vegetation. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 118, 69–81.
Close DC, Davidson NJ
(2004) Review of rural tree decline in a changing Australian climate. Tasforests 15, 1–18.
Collins D, Della-Marta P
(1999) Annual climate summary 1998: Australia’s warmest year on record. Australian Meteorological Magazine 48, 273–283.
Condit R
(1998) Ecological implications of change in drought patterns: shifts in forest composition in Panama. Climatic Change 39, 413–427.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Dale VH,
Joyce LA,
McNulty S,
Neilson RP,
Ayres MP,
Flannigan MD,
Hanson PJ,
Irland LC,
Lugo AE,
Peterson CJ,
Simberloff D,
Swanson FJ,
Stocks BJ, Wotton BM
(2001) Climate change and forest disturbances. Bioscience 51, 723–734.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Dungey HS, Potts BM
(2002) Susceptibility of some Eucalyptus species and their hybrids to possum damage. Australian Forestry 65, 23–30.
Gibson N, Kirkpatrick JB
(1989) Effects of the cessation of grazing on the grasslands and grassy woodlands of the Central Plateau, Tasmania. Australian Journal of Botany 37, 55–63.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Hebda R
(1998) Atmospheric change, forests and biodiversity. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 49, 195–212.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Hughes L
(2000) Biological consequences of global warming: is the signal already apparent? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 15, 56–61.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Hughes L,
Cawsey EM, Westoby M
(1996) Climatic range sizes of Eucalyptus species in relation to future climate change. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 5, 23–29.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Hutchinson MF
(1998) Interpolation of rainfall data with thin plate smoothing splines—part 1: two dimension smoothing of date with short range correlation. Journal of Geographic Information and Decision Analysis 2, 139–151.
Kappelle M,
van Vuuren MMI, Baas P
(1999) Effects of climate change on biodiversity: a review and identification of key research issues. Biodiversity and Conservation 8, 1383–1397.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Kirkpatrick JB
(2004) Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland 1974–2000. Australian Journal of Botany 52, 597–608.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Kirkpatrick JB, Gibson N
(1998) Responses to waterlogging and frost related to the topographic sequences of eucalypt species at three sites in central Tasmania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 132, 31–34.
Kirkpatrick JB, Gibson N
(1999) Towards an explanation of the altitudinal distributions of three species of Eucalyptus in central Tasmania. Australian Journal of Ecology 24, 123–131.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
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.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Kirkpatrick JB,
Zacharek A, Chappel K
(2000) Testing methods for mitigation of tree dieback in Tasmanian dry eucalypt forests and woodlands. Pacific Conservation Biology 6, 94–101.
Kirkpatrick JB,
Bridle KL, Lynch AJJ
(2002) Changes in vegetation and landforms at Hill One, Tasmania. Australian Journal of Botany 50, 753–759.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Martin PH
(1996) Climate change, water stress and fast forest response: a sensitivity study. Climatic Change 34, 223–230.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
McCarty JP
(2001) Ecological consequences of recent climate change. Conservation Biology 15, 320–331.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Neyland MG
(1999) A review of factors implicated in tree decline in Tasmania. Tasmanian Naturalist 121, 13–25.
Nicholls N,
Lavery B,
Frederiksen C, Drosdowsky W
(1996) Recent apparent changes in relationships between the El Nino–southern oscillation and Australian rainfall and temperature. Geophysical Research Letters 23, 3357–3360.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Nitschke CR, Innes JL
(2008) Integrating climate change into forest management in south–central British Columbia: and assessment of landscape vulnerability and development of a climate-smart framework. Forest Ecology and Management 256, 313–327.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Noss RF
(2001) Beyond Kyoto: forest management in a time of rapid climate change. Conservation Biology 15, 578–590.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Nunez M, Colhoun EA
(1986) A note on air temperature lapse rates on Mt Wellington, Tasmania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 120, 11–16.
Potts BM, Reid JB
(1985) Variation in the Eucalyptus gunnii–archeri complex. I. Variation in the adult phenotype. Australian Journal of Botany 33, 337–359.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Potts BM,
Potts WC, Kantvilas G
(2001) The Miena cider gum, Eucalyptus gunnii subsp. divaricarta (Myrtaceae): a taxon in rapid decline. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 135, 57–61.
Rebetez M, Dobbertin M
(2004) Climate change may already threaten Scots pine stands in the Swiss Alps. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 79, 1–9.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Rennenberg H,
Seiler W,
Matyssek R,
Gessler A, Kreuzwieser J
(2004) European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.)—A forest tree without future in the south of Central Europe? Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung 175, 210–224.
Solomon AM, Kirilenko AP
(1997) Climate change and terrestrial biomass: what if trees do not migrate? Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 6, 139–148.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Spencer RD
(1984) Detecting dieback in native eucalypt forest using aerial photographs. Australian Forestry 47, 243–249.
Stohlgren TJ,
Owen AJ, Lee M
(2000) Monitoring shifts in plant diversity in response to climate change: a method for landscapes. Biodiversity and Conservation 9, 65–86.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Suarez ML,
Ghermandi L, Kitzberger T
(2004) Factors predisposing episodic drought-induced tree mortality in Nothofagus—site, climatic sensitivity and growth trends. Journal of Ecology 92, 954–966.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Walther GR,
Berger S, Sykes MT
(2005) An ecological footprint of climate change. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences 272, 1427–1432.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Williams KJ, Potts BM
(1996) The natural distribution of Eucalyptus species in Tasmania. Tasforests 8, 39–165.
Woods A,
Coates KD, Hamann A
(2005) Is an unprecedented dothistroma needle blight epidemic related to climate change? Bioscience 55, 761–769.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
