Rainforests and vine thickets

Rainforests and vine thickets typically: • are closed-canopy forests, generally with 70% or greater foliage cover. • are characterised by trees with dense, horizontally or obliquely-held foliage in the upper layers. • are described in terms of leaf size: • mesophyll – more than 12.5 cm long (45 – 100 cm), e.g. tropical rainforest • notophyll – 7.5 - 12.5 cm long (2 – 45 cm2), e.g. warm temperate rainforest • microphyll – less than 7.5 cm long (2.5 – 20 cm2), e.g. cloud forest. • are high in plant-species diversity, which declines with increasing latitude and elevation. • are ‘taxonomically-deep’ in biodiversity, with diverse representation of genera, families and orders. • are home to plants that regenerate in low light conditions, typically in canopy gaps. • have a species composition that varies between successional stages following different kinds of disturbance. • are rarely fire-prone. Regular or intense wildfires can destroy the dense moisture-conserving forest cover, which many rainforest and vine thicket species depend on to regenerate and thrive. Where human activity and/or climatic change increase the frequency or intensity of fires, rainforests may be replaced with more fire-tolerant plant communities like sclerophyll forest or woodland. • may have emergent eucalypts present within its margins or throughout, depending on disturbance history. • vines, epiphytes and mosses are a conspicuous and important element of their structure in tropical and subtropical rainforests. In temperate rainforests epiphytes are less abundant and primarily cryptogams. Characteristic flora Non-sclerophyllous species dominate rainforests and vine thickets. Many of these species are representatives of the so-called ‘primitive’ flowering plant families such as Winteraceae, Eupomatiaceae, Monimiaceae, Lauraceae, and Cunoniaceae. Other typical plant families include Capparaceae, Celastraceae, Dilleniaceae, Ebenaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Meliaceae, Myrtaceae, Pittosporaceae, Rubiaceae, Rutaceae, Sapindaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Verbenaceae. ==Geography==

• Rainforests and vine thickets cover a wide geographic range along the eastern fringe of the continent and across the north, and are absent from central and western Australia. • They occur in cool temperate, warm temperate, subtropical, and tropical areas in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and as small patches in north coastal Northern Territory and the Kimberley region in Western Australia. • Rainforests and vine thickets also grow on Australia's offshore islands, including Christmas Island, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. ==Environment==

• Rain forests and vine thickets occur from sea level up to 1500 metres elevation, mostly within 100 km of the coast. Outliers of vine thicket extend further inland. • They are mostly confined to wetter areas or climatic refuges in eastern and northern Australia receiving more than 1200 mm of rainfall annually, but vine scrub and dry rainforest may occur in small patches where average annual rainfall is as low as 600 – 900 mm. • At the drier end of the rainfall range, rainforests and vine thickets are typically confined to topographically sheltered sites. • Rainforests and vine thickets grow on a range of substrates, including volcanic to sedimentary substrates, alluvial plains, and coastal sand sheets, with moderate to high levels of soil nutrients. Soils can exert a strict control on location and structure within a climatic zone. The influence of soil substrates is muted at the extremes of the tropical-monsoonal dry type and the cool-temperate wet type. ==Rainforest communities==

Major rainforest and vine thicket communities include cool temperate rainforest, tropical or sub-tropical rainforest, warm temperate rainforest, dry rainforest or vine thickets. They can be structured as closed forest (low, mid, and tall), closed fernland (low and mid), closed palmland (low and mid), closed vineland (low and mid), and closed shrubland (tall). Isolated patches of semi-deciduous monsoon forest occur across tropical northern Australia, including the Northern Territory's Top End and the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Habitats are diverse, including sandstone gorges and rock outcrops, lowland springs and stream margins, coastal beach ridges, and lateritic formations. Subtropical and warm temperate rainforest Warm temperate and subtropical forests are scattered throughout the mid-latitudes. Typical plant genera include Ceratopetalum, Doryphora, Acmena, Quintinia, Endiandra, Caldcluvia, Orites, Marsdenia, Cissus, Blechnum, and Lastreopsis. Subtropical rainforests have been extensively cleared for timber, dairying or agriculture. They include: • the Big Scrub in northern New South Wales, reduced from an estimated 75,000 ha to just 300 ha by 1900 • the Illawarra rainforests • hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) scrubs of south-east Queensland. Semi-deciduous vine thicket Semi-deciduous vine thicket, also known as semi-evergreen vine thicket, communities occur in drier environments, like the Brigalow Belt on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in south-central Queensland and north-central New South Wales. Monsoonal vine thickets are found on the eastern coast in the transitional zone between the coast and semi-arid areas, and in the seasonal tropics of northern Australia. Typical genera include Nothofagus, Eucryphia, Atherosperma, Athrotaxis, Dicksonia, and Tmesipteris. Predominant trees in Tasmania include myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii) and the Tasmanian endemic conifers huon pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii), celery top pine (Phyllocladus aspleniifolius), and King Billy pine (Athrotaxis selaginoides). Sassafras (Atherosperma moschatum) and leatherwood (Eucryphia spp.) are common broadleaf canopy trees. Deciduous beech (Nothofagus gunnii) is common at high elevations. In eastern Victoria Atherosperma moschatum and black olive berry (Elaeocarpus holopetalus) are the dominant canopy trees. ==References==