SuperSites

Warra Tall Eucalypt SuperSite

TERN’s Warra Tall Eucalypt SuperSite is approximately 60 km west south-west of Hobart, Tasmania. It lies partly within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, which is managed for conservation, and partly within State forest, which is managed for multiple purposes including wood production. Tall, wet Eucalyptus obliqua forests predominate and are part of the cool, temperate wet forest biome. The site also includes some areas of moorland, temperate rainforest, riparian and montane conifer forest and scrubs. TERN acknowledges the Palawa and Pakana people (Tasmanian Aboriginal community) as Traditional Owners of Lutruwita (Tasmania).

Site Infrastructure & Characteristics

One eddy-covariance flux tower
Two weather stations
Phenocams
Soil water content, soil water potential, soil temperature sensors
Water quality sensors
Acoustic sensor
Three X 1 ha Surveillance monitoring plots
Airborne and on-ground LiDAR and hyperspectral imagery calibrated using SLATS star transects, leaf sampling, tree structure and LAI measurements
Continuous forest inventory plots
Warra Silvicultural Systems Trial plots
Warra wildfire chronosequence plots
Southern Forests Experimental Forest Landscape (SFEFL) plots
Baseline Altitudinal Monitoring plots (BAMPs)

Vegetation type: Tall, wet Eucalyptus obliqua forest
Elevation: ~121 m
Soils: Kurosolic Redoxic Hydrosol

Site Research

Research using the Warra Tall Eucalypt SuperSite aims to:

understand fundamental ecological processes in E. obliqua wet forests;
assess and monitor biodiversity and geodiversity;
determine the long term effects of different forest management regimes on natural diversity and ecological processes and thus assess their sustainability;
where necessary, to develop alternative management regimes;
provide an integrated multi-disciplinary focus, which complements research programs elsewhere in Tasmania; and
link Tasmanian forest research with national and international programs having a long-term ecological focus.

Featured Dataset

This dataset consists of measurements of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer in wet sclerophyll forest using eddy covariance techniques.