Fire History of Blakes Opening – firecentre.org.au

Blakes Opening, Huon River, in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in Tasmania, is the focus of an ARC grant that aims to resolve one of the most vexed questions in Tasmanian landscape ecology: whether fire controls button grass boundaries (Bowman and Perry 2017). This is a critically important question for the management of the TWWHA.

We collected sediment cores (using a standard D-section corer and mud-water interface corer [mwi]) from one waterbody in buttongrass sedgeland, one within the adjacent forest, and sampled another eroded riverbank section (see map). These samples will be analysed for macroscopic and microscopic charcoal, pollen grains will be identified, and the core will be dated using 14-C and 210-Pb to build a high-resolution chronology. The methods will closely follow recent related research: Romanin et al. (2016)

The palaeoecology study will be combined with other investigations (including Lidar analysis) in a synthesis to determine the relative roles of fire and sols in controlling forest-sedgeland boundaries.

Researchers

Prof. David Bowman

Partners

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Address

Fire Centre Research Hub, The University of Tasmania
Private Bag 55, Hobart TAS 7001, Australia

[email protected]

Acknowledgement of Country:

‘The Fire Centre acknowledges the Palawa and Pakana people as the traditional and ongoing custodians of lutruwita (Tasmania), paying respect to their culture and identity which has been bound up with the Land, Sea, Waterways and Sky for generations. The Fire Centre commits to being culturally inclusive and respectful in our relationships”