SummaryThe tall eucalypt forests (TEFs) of the Australian tropics are often portrayed as threatened by ‘invasive’ neighboring rainforests, requiring ‘protective’ burning. This framing overlooks that Australian rainforests have suffered twice the historical losses of TEFs and ignores the ecological and paleobiological significance of rainforest margins. Early Eocene fossils from Argentina show that biodiverse rainforests with abundant Eucalyptus existed > 50 million years ago (Ma) in West Gondwana, shaped by nonfire disturbance factors such as landslides and volcanic flows. Humid volcanic environments with eucalypts were also present in eastern Australia over much of the Cenozoic. The dominance of fire‐adapted eucalypts appears to be geologically recent and is linked to Neogene C4 grassland expansion, Pleistocene climate cycles, and human activity. We suggest that characterizing TEFs and rainforests as adversarial results from misinterpreting the evolutionary history and expansion‐contraction dynamics of a single humid forest system, whose features are now heavily modified by human activities. The resulting management practices damage the outstanding World Heritage values and carbon storage of affected areas and thus have impacts far beyond Australia. The fossil evidence shows that rainforest margins preserve ancient, still evolving, and globally significant forest interactions that should be prioritized for restoration and research.

中文翻译：

---

古植物学重新构建了澳大利亚热带雨林边缘的激烈辩论


摘要澳大利亚热带地区的高大桉树林 （TEF） 经常被描绘成受到邻近热带雨林的“入侵性”威胁，需要“保护性”焚烧。这种框架忽视了澳大利亚热带雨林遭受的历史损失是 TEF 的两倍，并且忽视了热带雨林边缘的生态和古生物学意义。来自阿根廷的早期始新世化石表明，5000 万年前 （马） 在西冈瓦纳存在具有丰富桉树的生物多样性热带雨林 >，由山体滑坡和火山流等非火灾干扰因素塑造。在新生代的大部分时间里，澳大利亚东部也存在带有桉树的潮湿火山环境。适应火的桉树的主导地位似乎是地质学上最近的，并且与新近纪 C4 草原扩张、更新世气候周期和人类活动有关。我们认为，将 TEF 和热带雨林定性为对抗性是由于误解了单个湿润森林系统的进化历史和扩张-收缩动力学，其特征现在受到人类活动的严重改变。由此产生的管理做法损害了受影响地区突出的世界遗产价值和碳储存，因此影响远远超出了澳大利亚。化石证据表明，热带雨林边缘保留了古老的、仍在演变的和具有全球意义的森林相互作用，应优先进行恢复和研究。