Sclerophyll forests in southeast Australia have typically evolved alongside fire, and generally recover from single fire events. Anthropogenic climate change is increasing fire prevalence which means these forests are increasingly exposed to multi-fire events with shorter intervals between these events. Fire-adapted plant communities are increasingly exposed to fire regimes beyond both historical norms and predicted plant tolerances. This is likely to increase the risk of population declines for some plant species, but may benefit other species and change forest structure and character. This project assesses the resilience of Victorian forest understories to the combined effect of increasing fire frequency and severity.
Project timeline: 12/2021 – 12/2024