Tasmania provides a unique Southern Hemisphere counterpart to the Western United States study region. Fire has shaped Tasmanian vegetation for thousands of years, and the island offers an exceptional opportunity to test fundamental theories of fire-vegetation-soil interactions.

Why Tasmania?

In 1968, W.D. Jackson proposed a comprehensive model of how Tasmanian vegetation types, fire frequency, and soil fertility interact in a complex system of feedback loops. This theory has profoundly influenced fire ecology worldwide. WildFIRE PIRE examines key aspects of Jackson’s model that are critical for predicting vegetation response to future climate-driven changes in fire activity.

Research Focus Areas

In Tasmania, the project will:

  • Reconstruct landscape-scale fire activity over the past 10,000+ years using lake-sediment charcoal and pollen records
  • Develop high-resolution tree-ring fire histories for the last 1,000 years
  • Test Jackson’s vegetation-fire-soil feedback model with modern and paleo data
  • Quantify interactions between climate variability, vegetation change, and human activity
  • Project future wildfire behavior under changing climate scenarios

Study Sites

  • Multiple watersheds across Tasmania representing different vegetation types and fire regimes
  • Complementary sites in mainland Australia where appropriate

Broader Context

This research complements parallel studies in:

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View the full Science Plan Back to Project Overview

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