Species Turnover
Models of turnover in species composition of tree/shrub, forb and
graminoid communities between burnt and unburnt plots consistently had
good explanatory power, which (except for forbs) was higher than
equivalent models of relative species richness (trees/shrubs: 32.99 %,
forbs: 27.60%, and graminoids: 64.95%). Dissimilarity in species
composition of tree/shrub and forb communities was initially marked
(Table 3; Fig3a, 3b). Composition of forb communities had returned to
that of pre-fire communities approximately ten years after a fire (Fig.
3b), the composition of tree and shrub communities remained dissimilar
to that of pre-fire communities ten years after the fire event (Fig.
3a).
Within protected areas graminoid communities exhibited marked turnover
immediately following fire events, but these communities resembled
pre-fire communities ten tears after the fire event (Table 3; Fig. 3c).
Turnover in graminoid species composition in non-protected areas was
much lower immediately after a fire than in non-protected areas, but
this dissimilarity increased slightly over the ten years following a
fire (Fig. 3c). Species turnover in the composition of climber
communities did not appear to be associated with any of our predictor
variables as the best model had a higher AICc (79.27) than the null
model that lacked predictors (AICc 78.14).
Table 3: Results from model averaging across multiple
regression models of species turnover for trees/shrubs, forbs, and
graminoids. Results for climbers are not included as no model had a
lower AICc than the null model (i.e., one that lacked predictors).
Parameter estimates are provided with 95% confidence intervals in
brackets.