Changes in vegetation on Macquarie Island coastal slopes, 1980-1990 ...

• Main Author: Scott, Jennifer
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Macquarie Island
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23245847.v1; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Changes_in_vegetation_on_Macquarie_Island_coastal_slopes_1980-1990/23245847/1

The thesis examines various aspects of vegetation dynamics and change on subantarctic Macquarie Island over the ten years 1980 to 1990. The island is basically an elongated plateau surrounded by steep coastal slopes 100-250 meters in height. The major vegetation type on these slopes consists of tall tussock grassland dominated by the tussock-forming grass Poa foliosa, with the tall herb Stilbocarpa polaris an important accompanying species. The behaviour and distribution of these two species in the coastal slope vegetation under various disturbance conditions through time, forms the major focus of this study. The longitudinal observations of the study (involving longterm re-sampling through time) also allow the testing of an existing model of revegetation patterns on disturbed coastal slope sites which was based on a set of latitudinal observations (once-off \spatial\" sampling of time-sequence data from a series of differently aged sites). These latitudinal observations were taken at the beginning of the ...