New Zealand Journal of Botany abstract
Vegetation recovery following fire in two Waikato peatlands at Whangamarino and
Moanatuatua, New Zealand
BEVERLEY R. CLARKSON
Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research
Private Bag 3127
Hamilton, New Zealand
Abstract After fires in 1984 and 1989 at Whangamarino
wetland, and in 1972 at Moanatuatua Bog, peatland flora and vegetation were
monitored to determine rates and patterns of recovery. Species with rhizomes
that survived the fires were able to resprout and grow rapidly in the initial
post-fire period. Species that were eliminated had to re-establish from seed
and so recovered more slowly. The vegetation at Moanatuatua took almost 12
years to recover to pre-fire condition, twice as long as at Whangamarino.
Adventive and early colonising native species were prominent only in the first
1-2 post-fire years, probably because of temporarily increased availability of
nutrients and/or open habitat. Ordination techniques arranged the plots and
species in a sequence from shrub-sedgeland (Whangamarino), through Empodisma
minus restiad rushland (Whangamarino), to Sporadanthus
traversii/Empodisma restiad rushland (Moanatuatua) following a
gradient of decreasing fertility with time. Fires reset the bog development
process but generally do not alter the recovery pathways. In the absence of
future major disturbance, including invasion by troublesome adventive species,
the younger Whangamarino peatlands are expected to develop eventually into
floristically poor, oligotrophic raised bogs similar to those at Moanatuatua
and elsewhere in the Waikato district.
Keywords vegetation recovery; fire; peatland; Whangamarino
wetland; Moanatuatua Bog; Restionaceae; Empodisma minus; Sporadanthus
traversii
B96049
Received 18 July 1996; accepted 22 November 1996
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