Great Western Woodlands, Plant Functional Type Classification, Richness and Cover in Eucalyptus salubris Woodlands Across Time Since Fire Chronosequence, 2010-2011 

This record contains information on the Plant Functional Type Classification, Richness and Cover in Eucalyptus salubris Woodlands, Great Western Woodland site. The data were generated across time since fire chronosequence, 2010-2011. 

We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. Project was funded by: (1) Australian Supersite Network, part of the Australian Government’s Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network https://portal.tern.org.au/ a research infrastructure facility established under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and Education Infrastructure Fund - Super Science Initiative - through the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education; (2) A biodiversity and cultural conservation strategy for the Great Western Woodlands, Western Australian Department of Parks and Wildlife. 

Plant Functional Types (PFTs) are groupings of plants based on traits relevant to processes of vegetation change, allowing generalized predictions of vegetation responses to similar disturbances elsewhere. Recurrent fire is a dominant disturbance in Mediterranean-climate landscapes, yet there have been no studies of how a PFT classification can enhance understanding of vegetation change due to time since fire in ‘fire-sensitive’ Mediterranean-climate woodlands, where the dominant overstorey trees are typically killed by fire. The Great Western Woodlands (GWW) region of south-western Australia supports the world’s largest remaining area of Mediterranean-climate woodland, which in mosaic with mallee, shrublands and salt lakes cover an area of 160 000 km². Eucalyptus woodlands in this region are typically fire-sensitive, and fire return intervals recorded over recent decades have been much shorter than the long-term average. This has led to considerable conservation concern regarding the loss of mature woodlands, and has highlighted a need to better understand how plant communities change with time since fire. 

The Plant Functional Type (PFT) classification data, species richness and cover data were gathered from the Great Western Woodlands during 01/07/2010 to 01/12/2011.
Plant functional type (PFT) classification: We defined PFTs on the basis of life-form and plant height (seven categories) and seed dispersal potential (long vs. short). Life form and plant height are proxies for competitive dominance during the inter-fire period and longevity. Dispersal potential reflects the capacity for persistence at the landscape level and provides an indication of the likelihood of dispersal between areas of different times since fire and the potential for inter-fire recruitment. Of the 14 potential combinations of these traits, 12 were represented in the sampled flora. Methods for PFT definition and flora sampling are described in more detail in Gosper et al. (2013). Site details and cover of the individual taxa which make up the PFTs are available in an associated data set (Gosper et al. 2012).

We measured changes in PFT richness and cover in Eucalyptus salubris woodlands with increasing time since fire at 72, 50 x 50 m plots using a space-for-time approach. To estimate stand ages for this study we used satellite imagery, growth ring counts and relationships between growth ring counts and plant size, resulting in an estimated time since fire range sampled of 3 to 370 years.

Gosper CR, Yates CJ, Prober SM (2013) Floristic diversity in fire-sensitive eucalypt woodlands shows a ‘U’-shaped relationship with time since fire. Journal of Applied Ecology 50: 1187-1196.