The vegetation history of South Australia

Abstract

South Australia today is one of the most arid regions on Earth, with a vegetation that is well adapted to either a strongly developed winter rainfall pattern with associated hot, dry summers (mostly near the south coast), or, across the rest of the State, to highly intermittent rainfall and otherwise extremely hot and dry conditions. Despite being a very stable piece of land with a deep geological history, South Australia, as an integral part of Australia, has had a highly variable history in terms of its global positioning and its climate, so that even within the past 65 million years (since the catastrophic event that signalled the end of the Cretaceous), the position of South Australia has changed dramatically, from very close to the South Pole, through to its current position in midsouthern latitudes. During that time the climate has changed to such an extent that the vegetation has reduced by declining from highly diverse, very complex, broad-leafed rainforest, through to today’s scleromorphic forests and shrublands and various other forms of desert vegetation. The transition between these extremes has not been a smooth one, and especially in more recent times there has been significant controversy over the impact on the vegetation coincident with the arrival of Homo sapiens and the demise of the remarkable megafauna.