Tree growth rates in north Australian savanna habitats: seasonal patterns and correlations with leaf attributes

By L. Prior, Derek Eamus, D. Bowman. 2004

97 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We demonstrate a significant relationship between leaf attributes and growth rates of mature trees under natural conditions in northern Australia, a pattern that has not been widely reported before in the literature. Increase in diameter at breast height (DBH) was measured every 3 months for 2 years for 21 tree species from four habitats near Darwin: Eucalyptus open forest, mixed eucalypt woodland, Melaleuca swamp and dry monsoon rainforest. Assimilation rates and foliar chlorophyll, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations were positively correlated with growth rate and negatively correlated with leaf mass per area. For most species, increases in DBH were confined to the wet-season (summer) period between November and May. Average annual increases in DBH were larger in the dry monsoon rainforest (0.87 cm) and the Melaleuca swamp (0.65 cm) than in the woodland (0.20 cm) and the open forest (0.16 cm), and were larger in non-Myrtaceous species (0.53 cm) than in Myrtaceous species (0.25 cm). These results are discussed in relation to the frequent fire regime prevailing over much of northern Australia which causes the marked contrast between the small pockets of fire-tender closed monsoon rainforest and large expanses of fire-tolerant savanna.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a6d2ed79d29f34a6d866b5517ae6d91d0f91085a

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In Global and Planetary Change

1. I. Wright
2. M. Westoby
3. Daniel S. Falster
4. M. Lawes
5. J. Midgley
6. A. Franco
7. W. Hoffmann
8. Emma Gray

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. M. Westoby
2. I. Wright
3. Daniel S. Falster
4. M. Lawes
5. A. Franco
6. J. Midgley
7. W. Hoffmann
8. A. Moles

Citations in the corpus

• Differences in growth patterns between co-occurring forest and savanna trees affect the forest-savanna boundary (2009, background): “These traits should confer higher stem growth rates for forest species under typical growth conditions, as was found for savannas and forests in Australia (Prior et al. 2004), however this may not be true for forest trees invading savanna, where soil and water resources have been found to be limitin”
• How do small savanna trees avoid stem mortality by fire? The roles of stem diameter, height and bark thickness (2011, background): “Similarly, although in Australia forest species grow faster than savanna species (Prior et al. 2004) they are excluded from savannas by fire impacts (Wilson and Bowman 1994, Russell-Smith et al. 2003, Woinarski et al. 2004).”
• On the link between functional traits and growth rate: meta‐analysis shows effects change with plant size, as predicted (2016, background): “…Hunt & Cornelissen 1997 (a) Original stage: Seedling Juvenile Sapling Adult Mix * Flag: Reassigned Seedlings Saplings Adults Height (m) * 0 0.5 2 20 Prior et al 2004 Stratton & Goldstein 2001 Poorter & Bongers 2006 Coomes & Grubb 1998 Aiba & Nakashizuka 2009 King 1994 Lusk et al 2013b Osunkoya et…”
• A functional methodology for determining the groundwater regime needed to maintain the health of groundwater-dependent vegetation (2006, unknown): “Prior et al. (2004)”