Vegetation pattern and environmental correlates in coastal forests of the Australian monsoon tropics

A transect study of coastal forest vegetation on a lateritic peninsula in the Northern Territory revealed four distinct communities; eucalypt forest, mixed eucalypt forest-monsoon thicket, pure monsoon thicket and fringing coastal mangrove forest. The mangrove forest occurred in saline mud, the mixed and pure thicket on red earths and the eucalypt forest on both red and yellow earths. The eucalypt forest had less moisture in the surface soil than the other communities on the gentle slope above the mangroves. Evidence of past fire occurs in all the terrestrial communities, but the pure thicket is associated with a topographic position better protected from fire down-slope from the mixed community. Eucalypt regeneration in the mixed forest may be maintained by fires that have penetrated it from the frequently burnt eucalypt forest. It is possible that the mixed community is a fire sere occupying a site otherwise capable of supporting a pure thicket. However the pattern of vegetation has changed little in the recent past.