Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Fire in Southern Australia
The mediterranean-type climate (MTC) in Australia spans from the southwestern
part of Western Australia to include much of South Australia and western
Victoria ( Fig. 8.1 ), which covers a longitudinal distance second only to the
Mediterranean Basin MTC region. As in other MTC regions, the highly fire-prone
evergreen sclerophyllous shrub and tree mediterranean-type vegetation (MTV)
extends much further east and north into climatic zones that are not MTC.
Australia, however, is distinctly unlike other MTC regions in that fire-prone
MTV is extensive across the southern part of the continent and transcends climatic
boundaries with relatively subtle changes in community structure and compos-
ition. Sclerophyllous MTV dominates both the MTC region of the southwestern
corner of the continent as well as the southeastern corner under an aseasonal
climate. Both regions share a common fire season of summer to early autumn
(McArthur 1972 ); however, the MTC southwest has a potential fire season every
summer whereas in the southeast it is tied to weather anomalies that occur once to
several times a decade.
Mediterranean-type Vegetation
Within the southern Australian MTC zone ( Fig. 8.1 ) evergreen sclerophyllous
vegetation dominates. Such MTV is sometimes defined as shrub dominated
(Specht 1979 ), and indeed large areas of sclerophyllous heaths (see Fig. 1.6f ),
shrublands ( Fig. 8.2a ) and mallee ( Fig. 8.3 ) occur. However, woodlands and
forests form integral parts of the MTC biome (Dell et al. 1989 ; Gill 1994 ), and
thus MTV includes shrublands, woodlands and forests, and in southern Australia
they dominate both in the MTC region and outside that climatic zone ( Fig. 8.1 ).
MTV is found across the southern temperate latitudes of Australia ( Table 8.1 )in
an arc below about 30 latitude, accounting for dominant vegetation types in
infertile habitats throughout temperate Australia. We specifically focus on the
various heaths, shrublands and dry sclerophyll forests that constitute the most fire
prone communities in these temperate landscapes. Although similar fire-prone
MTV heathlands occur extensively within the tropics on the northern end of
the continent (Keith et al. 2002 ; Russell-Smith & Stanton 2002 ), here we focus
on the temperate MTV, but do consider broader relationships with other
 
 
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