Tree mortality in Australian ecosystems: past, present and future

About the talk

Australia is not only the driest inhabited continent, it also experiences high interannual variability in rainfall, and severe multi-year droughts. Tree death from drought is thus a recurring feature of the Australian landscape. In this talk I will review our current understanding of drought mortality in Australian ecosystems, including the historical context, current field research on the extent and mechanisms of drought dieback and recovery, and the development of models to predict future drought mortality risk.