A history of Australia’s riverine habitats and vegetation

Abstract

<p>Our understanding of vegetation in Australia's riverine landscapes is greatly enhanced by an understanding of its history and dynamics over long timescales. Individuals and cohorts of structurally dominant riverine plant species, such as Eucalyptus camaldulensis (river red gum), E. largiflorens (black box) and E. coolabah (coolibah), can live for several hundred years and possess numerous adaptations that allow them to persist through long periods of suboptimal conditions. Similarly, it can take many years for plant taxa to disperse into newly created or transformed habitats within temporally dynamic riverine landscapes. Consequently, it is not possible to fully understand current species distributions and associations without knowledge of past states of riverine vegetation communities as well as their rates and trajectories of change.</p>