Effect of agriculture on the natural development of scrublands

The natural development of semiarid scrublands is affected by cultivation of the land and by grazing by domestic animals, a destructive form of land use that can substantially alter vegetation. Even regions that have been used for farming only for relatively short periods have been rapidly and substantially altered. Scrublands that are dependent on nutrient-poor soil can be permanently destroyed by the addition of nutrients, such as fertilizers used for agriculture or that have entered the ecosystem as pollution. The amelioration of soil conditions permits invasion by plants from other vegetation types that can grow more vigorously than the original scrubland plants.

In most regions of Australia, agriculture, including the grazing of domestic animals, has been practiced for less than 200 years. The semiarid tropical scrublands are reasonably intact across large areas, but the more southerly chenopod scrublands have been altered markedly during the past 150 years by intense sheep grazing. Ninety percent of these valuable rangelands have degenerated to some extent, and 25 percent have been severely affected. During this process, 22 plant species have become so rare that they are considered to be in danger of extinction within the next 10 to 20 years if land-use practices are not changed. The number of palatable species seems to be declining, especially near watering points, although by contrast some unpalatable shrub species have become more common. This effect has greatly reduced the value of the vegetation as rangeland.

Large areas of mallee have been cleared to grow wheat, although the climate is so marginal that the crop often fails completely. Other Australian scrublands also continue to be cleared and fertilized for various agricultural purposes.

Broad-scale farming activity may create as well as destroy scrublands. This has happened in large areas of semiarid eastern Australia where grasslands were formerly dominant. Previously, when thick grass grew after a rain, it became fuel for wildfires, a process that favoured regrowth of the grass after the next rain but killed many shrub seedlings. After introduction of large numbers of domestic stock and eviction of the area’s Aboriginal inhabitants who had maintained the fire regime, the grass was mostly eaten by sheep and fires became less frequent. As a consequence, very large areas were invaded by “woody weeds”—unpalatable native shrubs that have created new areas of scrublands and greatly diminished the area’s grazing value.

Wherever climatic conditions are marginal for tree growth, vegetation is vulnerable to alteration by human activities. Trees disappear as a result, often to be replaced by shrubs. This vegetational degradation may have occurred so long ago as to be effectively permanent, leading modern observers to believe initially that these scrublands represent the natural, climate-induced vegetation of those areas. Scrublands of the Mediterranean region that have been affected by human activity for centuries, called by local names such as garigue, maquis, and macchia, are examples. Many areas have been converted from forest to scrubland by tree clearance, heavy grazing especially by goats, frequent burning, and consequent soil erosion. In these ways, evergreen forests of pine and oak have been replaced by scrublands in places throughout the northern Mediterranean fringe from Spain to Lebanon. Similar changes can be observed at similar latitudes as far eastward as China.

Occasionally, scrublands may result from the introduction of, and subsequent dominance by, an alien shrub species in a region in which woody plants are absent or rare. This has occurred in the grass-dominated, seasonally flooded areas of northernmost Australia to which the giant sensitive plant (Mimosa pigra) was introduced from Mexico; it since has multiplied to form extensive areas of dense, unnatural scrubland. A similar process is occurring in the Mitchell grasslands in inland northeastern Australia, an area being invaded by the introduced African shrub Acacia nilotica.