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This content will become publicly available on February 1, 2026

Title: Paleobotany reframes the fiery debate on Australia's rainforest edges
Summary The tall eucalypt forests (TEFs) of the Australian tropics are often portrayed as threatened by ‘invasive’ neighboring rainforests, requiring ‘protective’ burning. This framing overlooks that Australian rainforests have suffered twice the historical losses of TEFs and ignores the ecological and paleobiological significance of rainforest margins. Early Eocene fossils from Argentina show that biodiverse rainforests with abundantEucalyptusexisted > 50 million years ago (Ma) in West Gondwana, shaped by nonfire disturbance factors such as landslides and volcanic flows. Humid volcanic environments with eucalypts were also present in eastern Australia over much of the Cenozoic. The dominance of fire‐adapted eucalypts appears to be geologically recent and is linked to Neogene C4grassland expansion, Pleistocene climate cycles, and human activity. We suggest that characterizing TEFs and rainforests as adversarial results from misinterpreting the evolutionary history and expansion‐contraction dynamics of a single humid forest system, whose features are now heavily modified by human activities. The resulting management practices damage the outstanding World Heritage values and carbon storage of affected areas and thus have impacts far beyond Australia. The fossil evidence shows that rainforest margins preserve ancient, still evolving, and globally significant forest interactions that should be prioritized for restoration and research.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1925755 1556666
PAR ID:
10589895
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
New Phytologist Foundation
Date Published:
Journal Name:
New Phytologist
Volume:
245
Issue:
4
ISSN:
0028-646X
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1355 to 1365
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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