Above and below-ground disturbance responses in Mountain Ash forests

Above and below-ground biological communities and abiotic properties form interactions and feedbacks that underpin critical ecological functions across all terrestrial ecosystems. Despite this, ecological research has traditionally focused on quantifying disturbance responses above-ground, with little consideration of those below-ground, or of the interactions between them. My research describes how soil properties, microbial and plant communities and their respective multi-trophic interactions are influenced by multiple wildfires, clearcut logging and salvage logging events across a multi-century chronosequence in the Mountain Ash forests of the Victorian Central Highlands, south-eastern Australia.