Fire and Australian Vegetation

doi:10.1017/9781316339701.007

5 - Fire and Australian Vegetation

from Part I - Ecological Processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2026

Ben P. Miller and

Brett P. Murphy

Edited by

David A. Keith

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David A. Keith: Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney

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Summary

Fire has been a major force shaping the distribution and form of Australian vegetation through deep evolutionary time, and remains so today. While the role of fire in the evolution of the Australian flora is extremely difficult to demonstrate, most of Australia's most diverse and dominant plant genera have traits that appear to be adapted to living with fire, and these traits are likely to have contributed to their success and radiation. Fire regime components include fire season, intensity, frequency and type. Fire regime, fire pattern and size, are influenced by climate, net primary productivity, landscape features, and human activity. Attributes of vegetation such as vertical structure, horizontal pattern and connectivity, volatile oil production, moisture content and seasonal variation influence the behaviour of fire. At the same time, fire regime components interact with plant traits to filter the species capable of persisting at a site, and hence influence the structure, dynamics and composition of vegetation. Vegetation and fire represent a single dynamic system driven by climate and site attributes that vary in response to local and global drivers. These inherent dynamics now interact with a powerful set of anthropogenic impacts – fragmentation, invasive species, grazing, timber extraction, climate change and fire management – changing the attributes of Australia's vegetation. Here we review the evolutionary and ecological history of fire in Australia, patterns and drivers of modern Australian fire regimes, interactions between plant traits and fire regimes and the influence of anthropogenic change on fire–vegetation interactions.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Australian Vegetation , pp. 113 - 134
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316339701.007 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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