Plant rarity in fire-prone dry sclerophyll communities.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the responses of rare species to altered fire disturbance regimes is an ongoing challenge for ecologists. We asked: are there associations between fire regimes and plant rarity across different vegetation communities? We combined 62 years of fire history records with vegetation surveys of 86 sites across three different dry sclerophyll vegetation communities in Booderee National Park, south-east Australia to: (1) compare associations between species richness and rare species richness with fire regimes, (2) test whether fire regimes influence the proportion of rare species present in an assemblage, and (3) examine whether rare species are associated with particular fire response traits and life history. We also sought to determine if different rarity categorisations influence

SUBMITTER: Sritharan MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9283327 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature