Soil Phosphate and Vegetal Pattern in Some Natural Communities of South‐Eastern Queensland, Australia

Beadle (1953) refers to the restricted interest in the effects of individual properties of the soil on communities of native vegetation. The literature on soil phosphate includes few attempts to study it in this connection, the only recent work seen by us being that of Allard (1942), Billings (1950), Beadle (1954), and Salisbury (1954). When selecting and developing areas for planting to exotic species of Pinus, the Queensland Forest Service uses a set of criteria which includes the total phosphate content of the upper 4 inches -of soil and the frequency and vigour of the native trees, chiefly species of Eucalyptus L'Herit. The second criterion is not recorded by any system of formal ecological classification, but from experience gained by one of the authors (Coaldrake) during an ecological study of the region, the original survey data may be transformed into floristic groups which are distinct units in the field. When these are coupled with the large number of phosphate records the hypothesis that soil phosphate governs vegetal pattern can be examined statistically for the areas sampled. The phosphate/vegetation records used in this study come from two areas twenty miles apart. The more southerly of these is at the Toolara Forest Station, approximately 20 miles east of Gympie, while the other is at the Tuan Creek Forest Station, 10 miles south-east of Maryborough (Fig. 1). Through the courtesy of the Director of the Queensland Forest Service, the authors have been able to study the results of 940 phosphate analyses.