Rainforest, drought and soil type: Phytogeography and functional and evolutionary ecology of dry rainforest on the western slopes of New South Wales

Abstract

Many ecologists have noted the occurrence of rainforest communities in inland areas of Australia generally considered too dry for such vegetation. Termed dry rainforest, these communities are similar to vegetation on other continents, such as subtropical southern African thicket and dry forests of the Americas, Caribbean, Africa and South-East Asia, that occurs in seasonally dry environments. In Australia, dry rainforest is thought to be derived from the once widespread rainforest flora, sifted through the climatic and geological changes of the late Tertiary and Pleistocene. Despite the widespread acceptance of this model for the origins of inland dry rainforest, it has rarely been tested. The dry rainforests of the western slopes of New South Wales (NSW) are thought to have arisen by this late Tertiary environmental sifting. They have affinities with mesic coastal rainforests, so there is opportunity to test these ideas concerning the origins of inland dry rainforests in that study area.