Young woodland restoration plantings can be resilient to uncontrolled bushfires

Abstract

Tree planting projects are widely conducted in agricultural areas across Australia, but relatively little is known about the vulnerability of these still young plantings to bushfires. As a result of climate change, more frequent and intense bushfires are predicted to occur across the continent. Therefore, it is important to know what happens to restoration plantings when young woody plants are burnt. To this end, we present 8 years of monitoring data from the Scottsdale Reserve in Bredbo, where we followed individual tubestock from 2013 to 2022 with an uncontrolled bushfire occurring in early February 2020. We found that Eucalypt (Eucalyptus spp.), Wattle (Acacia spp.), and Prickly Box (Bursaria spinosa) seedlings planted by volunteers had high survival rates from year to year, even after fire. Non-resprouting species including Hop Bush (Dodonaea viscosa) and Shiny Cassinia (Cassinia longifolia) had not recovered by early 2022, though these represented a much lower proportion of the planting. Our results suggest that some components of restoration plantings are resilient to burning but others are not able to produce viable seed banks, or regrow from them in this setting. Some replanting after fire may be required to maintain desired plant diversity and structure.