Apex Liminality: Comprehending Lord Howe Island’s Cloud Forest and Related Island Ecosystems

Abstract

Elevated isolated habitats that occur on mountain peaks and ridges are commonly referred to as sky islands. Sky islands are islands in a biogeographical sense but can also occur on islands. In these contexts, habitat islanding is effectively doubled, leading to highly distinct ecosystems. One subset of sky islands occurs in areas frequently covered by water vapour. These are commonly referred to as cloud forests but might be better characterised as elevated cloudy ecosystems in recognition of their nature as dynamic assemblages of vaporous, material and animate elements. The limited extent of these elevated areas and their reliance on cloaking vapour to maintain their habitats makes them particularly vulnerable to a range of Anthropocene pressures. Following a discussion of the limitations of analogous naming practices for such ecosystems, the article provides a general characterisation of elevated cloudy habitats and explores notions of atmospheres and of visibility with particular regard to Lord Howe Island and human perceptions of and experiences within its cloud forest zone. Moving to more comparative analyses, the article refers to various interventions that have either undermined or attempted to maintain similar island ecosystems and the prospects for these at a time of increasing global climate change. In considering such aspects, the article identifies the manner in which the elevated cloudy ecosystems of some islands are as integrated with and dependent on water vapour as they are on the islands' surrounding seas and merit recognition as a distinct phenomenon in this regard.