Applied phosphorus has long-term impacts on vegetation responses in restored jarrah forest

Daws, M., Grigg, A., Standish, R.ORCID: 0000-0001-8118-1904 and Tibbett, M. (2019) Applied phosphorus has long-term impacts on vegetation responses in restored jarrah forest. In: 13th International Conference on Mine Closure (Mine Closure 2019), 3-5 September 2019, Perth, WA pp. 693-704.

Abstract

Nutrient enrichment can result in long-term negative impacts on a range of native and semi-native plant communities worldwide. Despite this knowledge, fertiliser application is generally viewed as a necessary step in re-establishing native plant communities in post-mining restoration. However, long-term effects of nutrient addition to restored plant communities, particularly in native ecosystems that are adapted to inherently lownutrient soils, have received little attention. Here we report results of two experiments run for 15 and 20 years, respectively, to investigate the effect of applied P fertiliser on responses of Eucalyptus marginata (jarrah) forest re-sprouter understorey species in sites restored after bauxite mining in Western Australia. Resprouter species are abundant in unmined forest but are under-represented in restored sites. At the end of the two experiments (i.e. after 15 and 20 years), the abundance of three groups of re-sprouter understorey species was reduced, compared with the zero-fertiliser treatment, when P fertiliser was applied at rates from 20 to 120 kg P ha-1. In both experiments, the cover associated with P responsive legumes increased with increasing P application rates. This result suggests that when fertiliser is applied, slow-growing re-sprouter species are susceptible to being outcompeted by more vigorous understorey species. Consequently, if the goal of restoration is to re-establish a diverse plant community, then minimising fertiliser application rates may be appropriate.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Murdoch Affiliation(s):	Environmental and Conservation Sciences
Publisher:	Australian Centre for Geomechanics
Copyright:	© 2019 Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/64722

Item Control Page