Insights for restoration: reconstructing the long-term responses, resilience and recovery time of vegetation, hydrology and peat condition to fire events in the Sebangau peatland, Central Kalimantan.
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Date
2022-12-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Australasian Quaternary Association Inc.
Abstract
The palaeoecological and geochemical analysis of peat in the Natural Laboratory Peat-swamp Forest (NLPSF) has been used to identify the drivers of fire severity (FS) events and the associated responses, resilience and recovery time of this peatland system to aid in future restoration efforts in the Sebangau Peatland National Park (SPNP). From 4500 years BP to present, fire events have increased in severity and the drivers of FS included changes to sea level, increased frequency of El NiƱo events, increased biomass, and anthropogenic-driven degradation. The increased FS along with changes to the hydrology and peat condition over time have resulted in a vegetation turnover from mixed of peat forest and other vegetation types during the mid to late Holocene (4500 to 1201 years BP), to peat swamp forest (PSF) during the following ~800 years (1200 to 378 BP), lowland vegetation mixed with swamp forest (LMS) and open vegetation (OV) for the period between 377 and 134 years BP and finally, freshwater swamp forest (FSF) and OV in the last ~200 years (133 to -54 years BP) (Fig 1). From the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Generalised Linear Model (GLM), the changes to dominant vegetation types were due to changes in local hydrological conditions, as well as the fertilising effect from the combustion of organic matter (i.e. release of N and other minerals) and loss of soluble peat component during fire events. This information, together with the thresholds and lags of the responses, provided the following restoration insights: 1) Vegetation species have different fire intensity tolerances and transition from PSF to LMS and OV required a higher threshold with recovery time of approximately 70 to 80 years; 2) PSF expanded with higher peat nutrients (i.e. TN) and required wet peat environments compared to FSF and LMS but some PSF species (i.e. Eurya and Ilex) were able to cope with slightly drier peat conditions ; 4) Future revegetation in SPNP can focus on species such as Araceae, Restionaceae Myriophyllum, and Ficus as they were able to withstand high FS, less acidic and minimally wet conditions, while sustaining carbon accumulation in degraded tropical peatlands.
Description
Keywords
Hydrology, Forests, Parks, Biomass, Plants, Swamps, Fresh water, Carbon, Wetlands, Biological recovery
Citation
Mohamed, R., Khairun, N., Moss, P. T., Jacobsen, G., Gallego-Sala, A., Charman, D., & Yulianti, N. (2022). Insights for restoration: reconstructing the long-term responses, resilience and recovery time of vegetation, hydrology and peat condition to fire events in the Sebangau peatland, Central Kalimantan. Paper presented to the AQUA 2022 Conference, 6-8th December, Adelaide, (pp. 78-80). Retrieved from: https://aqua.org.au/conference/aqua-2022/aqua-2022-conference-program-and-abstracts/