Decades-scale vegetation change in burned and unburned alpine coniferous heath

Fire appears to be a rare event in alpine vegetation, suggesting that its effects might be greater and more persistent than in most lowland vegetation types. Climate change may make alpine environments more fire-prone. This paper describes decade-scale succession after fire in long term paired plots over fire boundaries in Tasmanian alpine coniferous heath, assesses its type, trajectories and speed and examines the data for any evidence of climate change. Recovery of vegetation was extremely slow by global standards, conforming, as predicted to the relay floristics model. There was extremely low cover of fire sensitive species 43-69 years after fire and much bare ground still evident, with the rate of revegetation declining through time. Higher soil fertility was related to faster rates of revegetation. Gymnosperm shrubs increased at the expense of angiosperms in the unburned plots in the same period and cryptogams declined in both burned and unburned plots.