Mabi forest
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n ecological community
Community (ecology)
In ecology, a community is an assemblage of two or more populations of different species occupying the same geographical area. The term community has a variety of uses...
, remnant patches of which can only be found on some of the fertile (nutrient rich) basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
s of either North Queensland's
Queensland tropical rain forests
The Queensland tropical rain forests are a terrestrial ecoregion located in northeastern Australia.-Setting:The ecoregion covers of northeastern coastal Queensland, from the coast up a series of plateaus and tablelands to the mountains behind the coast. The ecoregion comprises three separate...
Atherton Tableland
Atherton Tableland
The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. It is located west to south-south-west inland from Cairns, well into the tropics, but its elevated position provides a climate suitable for dairy farming. It has an area of around...
s, or at Shiptons Flat (aka Kuna
Kuku Nyungkal people
The Kuku Nyungkal people are a group of Aboriginal Australians who are the original custodians of the coastal mountain slopes, wet tropical forests, waters, and waterfalls of the Upper Annan River, south of Cooktown, Queensland...
), along the Annan River
A Threatened Species Scientific Committee charged with advising on the conservation status of native species and ecological communities recommended the remnant Mabi forests be listed as "critically endangered" for the following reasons:
"There is only 1050 ha of Mabi Forest left, and this occurs as a series of small, isolated patches. Many of the remnant patches of Mabi Forest are being invaded by exotic smothering vines, and feral and domestic animals. The use of remnant patches of Mabi Forest by stock can impact on this ecological community through trampling, grazing and soil compaction."
Dyirbal language
Dyirbal is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in northeast Queensland by about 5 speakers of the Dyirbal tribe. It is a member of the small Dyirbalic branch of the Pama–Nyungan family...
and Yidiny language
Yidiny language
Yidiny is a nearly extinct Australian Aboriginal language, spoken by the Yidindji tribe of northern Queensland.-Vowels:-Consonants:-Grammar:...
name for the Lumholtz tree kangaroo
Lumholtz's Tree-kangaroo
Lumholtz's Tree-kangaroo is a heavy-bodied tree-kangaroo found in rain forests of the Atherton Tableland Region of Queensland. Its status is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, although local authorities classify it as rare...
The name "Mabi forest" was given to this particular type of ecological community, as it is a forest type and habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
that supports high populations of Lumholtz tree kangaroos (aka Mabi)
Distribution
Mabi forests are confined to the Atherton TablelandAtherton Tableland
The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. It is located west to south-south-west inland from Cairns, well into the tropics, but its elevated position provides a climate suitable for dairy farming. It has an area of around...
(with the exception of small remnant patch at Shiptons Flat).
Botanist Tony Irvine writing for Trees for the Evelyn and Atherton Tablelands Inc in 2004, described their distribution, then, as follows:
"..today remnants consist of Curtain FigCurtain Fig TreeThe Curtain Fig Tree is one of the largest trees in Tropical North Queensland, Australia, and one of the best known attractions on the Atherton Tableland. It is located just out of Yungaburra....
including Thomas Road, Picnic Crossing, KairiKairi, QueenslandKairi is a town on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is close to Lake Tinaroo. It is 1370 km northwest from Brisbane and is 719m above sea level. The closest more populous place is Tinaroo, which is 5.2 km North of Kairi. At the 2006 census, Kairi had a...
Research Station, Cullamungie Pocket (slightly south of Pelican Point but on the eastern side of Tinaroo DamLake TinarooLake Tinaroo, also known as Tinaroo Dam, is a man-made reservoir on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland, Australia. It was constructed between 1953 and 1958 on the Barron River close to Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham .- History :...
), Halloran's Hill, Nasser's Property (Wongabel), Wongabel State Forest, Nicholas Creek, TolgaTolga, QueenslandTolga is a town on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland, Australia, and is the centre of the regions peanut industry. At the 2006 census, Tolga had a population of 843.The name Tolga means red mud in the local Aboriginal language...
Scrub and other small scattered areas of less than 0.5 ha on private property. Curtain Fig is the largest remnant, roughly consisting of slightly less than 4 square kilometres in area."
Characteristics
Mabi forests are a particular kind of dense vine forest that grows on nutrient rich yet porous volcanic soils with annual rainfalls averaging between 1300 – 1600 mm and a severe seasonal dryDry season
The dry season is a term commonly used when describing the weather in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which oscillates from the northern to the southern tropics over the course of the year...
around October of each year
These ecological communities can be distinguished from other forests types by their thick layer of shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
s and many vine
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
s growing beneath more open canopies of semi-evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
and scattered deciduous
Deciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
trees (reaching upwards to between 25m and 45 m high).
Botanist Tony Irvine described Mabi forests as follows :
"..the key thing about Mabi Forest...is that it has mostly tall canopy trees, many vines and a dense shrub layer."
"Key diagnostic features of Mabi forest are:* Many trees with plank buttressesButtress rootButtress are large roots on all sides of a big bottomed tree or shallowly rooted tree. Typically, they are found in nutrient-poor rainforest soils and do not penetrate to deeper layers. They prevent the tree from falling over while also gathering more nutrients...
up to 45m tall* A well-developed layer of specific shrub species and scrambling lawyer vines.* A high presence of deciduous and semi-deciduous trees.* Scattered large lianaLianaA liana is any of various long-stemmed, woody vines that are rooted in the soil at ground level and use trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy to get access to well-lit areas of the forest. Lianas are especially characteristic of tropical moist deciduous...
s and many slender vines* Large-sized individual epiphyticEpiphyteAn epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...
fernFernA fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...
s* High presence of stinging bushes along edges and in large canopy gaps* Usually has seasonal wilting of the understorey and seasonal heavy leaf fall."
He further describes the multiple layers of typical Mabi forest as follows:
"The forest may have up to six layers of vegetation. The canopy is uneven and consists of:1. Scattered emergent trees, 40-45m tall2. A main canopy, 25-40m tall but occasionally as low as 14-20m...3. A subcanopy, 12-20m tall4. A lower layer, 6-8m tall. This layer tends to be absent in areas with lower upper canopies. 5. A predominantly dense shrub and scrambling lawyer vine zone 1-5m tall.6. A zone of seedling trees, shrubs, vines and herbs 0-1m tall."
External links
- Department of Environment and Heritage (2004) Mabi Forest Nationally Threatened Species and Ecological Communities Information Sheet Accessed 17 March 2009
- Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (2009). Mabi Forest (Complex Notophyll Vine Forest 5b) Accessed 21 March 2009