Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia
by Tehdasi on Thursday January 02, 2020 @05:04AM
(#21934133)
Not quite, there will be less fuel, but not less trees. The bushland of Australia has had regular fires baked into it's ecosystem, so the plant species all have coping mechanisms to deal with fire. A good example is are the Banksia varieties that rely on a bushfire to germinate.
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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia
by Scarblac on Thursday January 02, 2020 @05:37AM
(#21934287)
Yes, but apparently there are now also lots of forests burning that have never burned before and where the trees aren't adapted for it.
Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia
by h0l0cube on Thursday January 02, 2020 @07:45AM
(#21934907)
These are typically areas where eucalypts have died off after centuries, allowing other species to fill the gap. Now that the fires have come through, the eucalypts will come back to fill the gaps and will quickly out-compete any other plants with superior height and canopy. They will get their next chance, a few centuries hence.
Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia
by bjowen on Thursday January 02, 2020 @04:42PM
(#21940195)
This isn’t true of the areas of greatest concern, where Gondwanan rainforest is burning. Eucalyptus is the newcomer, and it is fire-adapted and hot weather adapted, it out-competes the ancient forests where there are fires, and the nothofagus does not grow back.
Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia
by h0l0cube on Thursday January 02, 2020 @05:05PM
(#21940427)
This process happens too in Tasmania where most of that beautiful nothofagus grows. But you are right, these populations could be wiped out completely if fires increase and there's no chance for recovery - or the entire population is burnt. I wasn't suggesting that everything is okay, because it clearly isn't.