Logging and fire regimes alter plant communities

Disturbances are key drivers of plant community composition, structure and function. Plant functional traits, including life forms and reproductive strategies are critical to the resilience and resistance of plant communities in the event of disturbance. Climate change and increasing anthropogenic disturbance are altering natural disturbance regimes, globally. When these regimes shift beyond the adaptive resilience of plant functional traits, local populations and ecosystem functions can become compromised. We tested the influence of multiple disturbances, of varying intensity and frequency, on the composition and abundance of vascular plant communities and their respective functional traits (life forms and reproductive strategies) in the wet sclerophyll, Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans forests of south-eastern Australia. Specifically, we quantified the effect of the type and number of disturbances (including fires, clearcut logging and salvage logging) on plant community composition. W...

干扰是调控植物群落组成、结构与功能的核心驱动因素。植物功能性状（plant functional traits，涵盖生活型与繁殖策略），是植物群落在遭遇干扰时维持恢复能力与抗性的关键要素。全球范围内，气候变化与日益加剧的人为干扰正在改变自然干扰格局。当此类干扰格局的变化超出植物功能性状的适应性恢复能力阈值时，本地种群与生态系统功能便会受到损害。本研究以澳大利亚东南部的湿硬叶林（wet sclerophyll）——山灰桉（Eucalyptus regnans）林为研究对象，探究了不同强度与频率的多重干扰对维管植物群落（vascular plant communities）的组成、多度及其对应功能性状（生活型与繁殖策略）的影响。具体而言，我们量化了包括火灾、皆伐（clearcut logging）与灾后采伐（salvage logging）在内的干扰类型与数量对植物群落组成的影响。W...