Long term responses of a subtropical rainforest ecosystem to logging in the Australian Main Range Volcanics CZO

Abstract:

The recently established Main Range National Park Critical Zone Observatory is located within the Australian Gondwana Rainforests remnant basalt volcanic landscape, which is the largest area of subtropical rainforest in the world and represents an excellent natural laboratory in which to investigate processes of landscape evolution, soil weathering, vegetation succession, and nutrient cycling. In 1962, permanent monitoring plots were established within the Main Range Volcanics rainforest to investigate the effects of logging on vegetation dynamics and hydrology. Establishment of the CZO site within the National Park includes these plots as well as a rainforest to eucalypt forest ecotone, and has extended the range of parameters being collected to include soil chemical and physical properties, micrometeorology, and fauna. Here, we present preliminary results from a study integrating vegetation dynamics with changes in soil chemistry, microbiology, and hydrology within the logging plots to gain a more holistic understanding of how the rainforest ecosystem responds to anthropogenic forcings such as logging.