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NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
Melbourne, Australia, 07/28/2008 - Published by Wiley-Blackwell - In light of Cyclone Larry and Cyclone Monica, Austral Ecology has launched a special issue spotlighting tropical cyclones and northern Australian ecosystems.
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Published by Wiley-Blackwell, this collection of research papers examine the impact Cyclones Larry and Monica have on vegetation, fauna and landscape.
Tropical cyclones affect Northern Australia between November to May every year. As major ecological drivers in the region, the cyclones are major determinants of wind damage and have the ability to override usual ecological factors.
“The two cyclones that occurred in northern Australia during the late summer of 2006 allowed ecologists to capitalize on long-term ecological data and afforded them the opportunity to quantify impact and recovery. In this context, the impacts of the cyclone could be considered neutral, as they yielded both positive and negative impacts.” said author Steve Turton of the JCU/CSIRO Tropical Landscapes Joint Venture, Australian Tropical Forest Institute, James Cook University, Australia.
The paper “The Impact of Tropical Cyclone Larry on Bird Communities in Fragments of the Endangered Rainforest Type 5b” is one of the featured studies that focuses on fauna impacts following Cyclone Larry. According to the study, the mortality rate owing to immediate impact of the storm was insignificant. The greatest stress on bird communities only came during the after passage of the storm when bird species were forced to alter their behaviors as their usual habitat and food sources were damaged.
Lead author, Amanda Freeman says, “Being relatively generalized, Australian rainforest bird species were able to recover comparatively quickly from cyclone-induced food shortages. Within seven months, the bird communities had recovered to pre-cyclone states. This explains why Cyclone Larry, while causing significant structural damage to the rainforest, had relatively mild impact on the bird communities”.
Another paper in this special issue, “Estimates of Tree Canopy Loss as a Result of Cyclone Monica, in the Magela Creek Catchment Northern Australia” describes the impact that the category 2 winds had on tree canopy loss 10 days after the cyclone and compared it with data collected a year later. It finds a significant tree canopy loss of 20% within the first 10 days of the cyclone, with most severe impact along the coast. A year after the cyclone, recovery of canopy across studied catchments varied between 8 to 19%.
In the final section, Peter J. Bellingham provides a commentary “Cyclone Effects on Australian Rain Forests: An Overview” which is an overview of global insights and recent researches from studies of cyclones following Cyclone Larry.
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