Study to explore how increased bushfires will affect rare WA royal hakea shrub

Researchers from Notre Dame University have been studying the impacts the recent spate of bushfires has had on the royal hakea also known as Hakea Victoria, a shrub found only in southern WA.

Many have noticed the dropping numbers of royal hakea, a drawcard for tourists to visit Fitzgerald National Park.

Little is known about the WA endemic shrub, so Notre Dame is setting out to change that.

Researchers hope to understand the life cycle of the shrub as well as the impacts fire can have on it, helping to track the effects of prescribed burns and unexpected bushfires.

Led by honours student Tasmin Lancaster with supervision from Associate Professor Dylan Korczynskyj, the research project is backed by Friends of the Fitzgerald National River Park.

Fire forces the mother plant to release more seeds to grow into new plants.

However, if bushfires become more and more common it could stop those seeds from maturing and forming their own ‘seed bank’, affecting the population health of the plants.

Professor Korczynskyj said that the frequency with which fires occurred could affect the growth and reproduction of the royal hakea.

“The plants one of these plants that have adapted to live in a fire-prone environment and survive repeated fires by storing seed in hard fireproof little woody fruits in the crown of the plant,” he said.

“It hangs on to that seed, and when a fire goes through it will kill the mother plant.

“After the fire, the fruit will drop the seed into the environment, and then once the winter rains come they will germinate.

“Those seedlings that come up in the winter are the next population that allows the species to survive post-fire.”

Professor Korczynskyj said when the same area burned in relatively quick succession the development of the seed was affected.

“At the moment we don’t actually know how the seed bank in the plant canopy builds over time,” he said.

“Early results from Tasmin have shown that it takes about five to seven years before a young plant grows to maturity where it will even start to flower or produce fruit.

“What we really want to identify is a what point on the plant we see the maximum seed bank built for the species.

“After that, the seed has the chance of building every year.

“That would point to a time where you could say, now the risk of damage by fire in population size is going to be minimised.

“It points the risk that Hakea Victoria is at if we see a change to fire regimes (The frequency and intensity at which an area burns).”