A comparison of logging and fire disturbance on biophysical attributes of the Northern jarrah forest
Date of Award
2006
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
School of Natural Sciences
Faculty
Faculty of Computing, Health and Science
First Supervisor
Professor Harry Recher
Second Supervisor
Dr Mark Lund
Abstract
Ecologically sustainable forest management (ESFM) serves dual purposes: 1) to ensure the conservation of biodiversity, and 2) in production forest (forest managed for the production of timber and woodchips), to maintain an economically viable timber industry in perpetuity. A central axiom of ESFM is that any manipulation of a forest ecosystem should emulate the `natural' disturbance patterns of the forest. This is based on the assumption that forest communities have evolved with endogenous disturbance regimes and will be better able to cope if exogenous disturbance (e.g., logging) remains within natural levels and spatial and temporal bounds of intensity. The objective of this thesis was to assess whether logging within one of Australia's temperate forest ecosystems, the jarrah forest, falls within the range of its natural disturbance regimes and if not, whether logging reduces biodiversity within this ecosystem. As fire is the predominant natural disturbance in most Australian temperate forest, this objective was achieved by examining (i) whether there were initial differences between the impact of fire in unlogged forest compared with the impact of logging and fire in production forest and (ii) whether the biodiversity impacted by logging disturbance recovered within a period of time equivalent to that required for recovery from disturbance caused by fire.
Recommended Citation
Watson, A. W. (2006). A comparison of logging and fire disturbance on biophysical attributes of the Northern jarrah forest. Edith Cowan University. Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/103