Dominant drivers of seedling establishment in a fire-dependent obligate seeder: climate or fire regimes? Smith, Annabel L., Blair, David, McBurney, Lachlan, Banks, Sam C., Barton, Philip S., Blanchard, Wade, Driscoll, Don A., Gill, A. Malcolm and Lindenmayer, David B. 2014, Dominant drivers of seedling establishment in a fire-dependent obligate seeder: climate or fire regimes?, Ecosystems, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 258-270, doi: 10.1007/s10021-013-9721-9. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title Dominant drivers of seedling establishment in a fire-dependent obligate seeder: climate or fire regimes? Author(s) Smith, Annabel L. Blair, David McBurney, Lachlan Banks, Sam C. Barton, Philip S. Blanchard, Wade Driscoll, Don A. orcid.org/0000-0002-1560-5235 Gill, A. Malcolm Lindenmayer, David B. Journal name Ecosystems Volume number 17 Issue number 2 Start page 258 End page 270 Total pages 13 Publisher Springer Place of publication Berlin, Germany Publication date 2014-03 ISSN 1432-9840 1435-0629 Keyword(s) climate change disturbance fire return interval fire severity forest management plant functional type range shift regeneration niche Summary Climate change is causing fire regime shifts in ecosystems worldwide. Plant species with regeneration strategies strongly linked to a fire regime, such as obligate seeders, may be particularly threatened by these changes. It is unclear whether changes in fire regimes or the direct effects of climate change will be the dominant threats to obligate seeders in future. We investigated the relative importance of fire-related variables (fire return interval andfire severity) and environmental factors (climate and topography) on seedling establishment in the world's tallest angiosperm, an obligate seeder, Eucalyptus regnans. Throughout its range, this species dominates the wet montane forests of south-eastern Australia and plays a keystone role in forest structure. Following major wildfires, we investigated seedling establishment in E. regnanswithin 1 year of fire as this is a critical stage in the regeneration niche of obligate seeders. Seedling presence and abundance were strongly related to the occurrence of fire but not to variation in fire severity (moderate vs. high severity). Seedling abundance increased with increasing fire return interval (range 26-300 years). First-year seedling establishment was also strongly associated with low temperatures and with high elevations, high precipitation and persistent soil water availability. Our results show that both climate and fire regimes are strong drivers of E. regnans seedling establishment. The predicted warming and drying of the climate might reduce the regeneration potential for some obligate seeders in future and these threats are likely to be compounded by changes in fire regimes, particularly increases in fire frequency. Language eng DOI 10.1007/s10021-013-9721-9 Field of Research 070503 Forestry Fire Management Socio Economic Objective 970105 Expanding Knowledge in the Environmental Sciences HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal ERA Research output type C Journal article Copyright notice ©2013, Springer Science+Business Media New York Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30078639 Document type: Journal Article Collections: School of Life and Environmental Sciences Centre for Integrative Ecology Related Links Link Description Connect to published version Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Wed, 30 Sep 2015, 17:07:09 EST Thu, 01 Oct 2015, 05:21:53 EST Thu, 01 Oct 2015, 08:36:19 EST Thu, 04 Feb 2016, 13:27:53 EST Fri, 05 Feb 2016, 05:07:20 EST Wed, 07 Sep 2016, 10:11:07 EST Wed, 07 Sep 2016, 10:16:27 EST Wed, 07 Sep 2016, 10:18:36 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 17 times in TR Web of Science Cited 20 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 179 Abstract Views, 2 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Thu, 04 Feb 2016, 13:27:53 EST

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