Abstract
Peatland margins are a distinct ecotone especially vulnerable to deep smouldering in the Boreal Plains because they can experience greater water table drawdown during dry periods compared to peatland middles. Margin recovery trajectories have potentially important implications for wildfire behaviour as both the rate of vegetation recovery and community composition control fuel load and flammability. We compared peatland margin and middle vegetation trajectories using a chronosequence of time-since-fire in boreal Alberta, Canada. Margins had unique post-fire indicator species, with a higher broadleaf cover and limited Sphagnum moss colonization. Middles and margins became less distinct with greater time-since-fire, where both were dominated by feathermoss as canopy closure increased. High burn severity in margins can expose the seedbank in the underlying mineral soil to favourable conditions, causing rapid accumulation of broadleaf aboveground biomass and limiting Sphagnum establishment. The rapid accumulation of aboveground biomass increases potential fuel load, while exclusion of Sphagnum increases future smouldering potential given the dense peat in the margin ecotone. However, the dominance of deciduous vegetation for several decades post fire would serve to limit wildfire compared to a conifer-dominated system, particularly post leaf-out. Thus, peatland margins could represent a positive feedback to peat carbon loss for early season fires and a negative feedback for post leaf-out fires due to the interplay between fuel load, fire seasonality, and species flammability. Characterization of margins as distinct ecotones with a separate vegetation structure and species composition from peatland middles provides critical insight about wildfire vulnerability and carbon storage in the Boreal Plains.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The datasets used for the analyses and figures presented in the current study are available in the Zenodo repository, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8247316. This includes species abundance data, canopy openness, and biomass data.
References
Alberta Energy Regulator/Alberta Geological Survey (2015) Surficial geology of Alberta, generalized digital mosaic DIG 2013- 0002. https://geology-ags-aer.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/ags-aer::surficial-geology-of-alberta-generalized-digital-mosaic-dig-2013-0002/about. Accessed 25 Jul 2023
Bauer IE, Bhatti JS, Swanston C et al (2009) Organic matter accumulation and community change at the Peatland-Upland interface: Inferences from 14C and 210Pb Dated Profiles. Ecosystems 12:636–653. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-009-9248-2
Beckingham J, Archibald J (1996) Field guide to ecosites of northern Alberta. Canadian Forest Service, Northwest Region, Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton, Alberta
Benscoter BW, Vitt DH (2008) Spatial Patterns and Temporal Trajectories of the Bog Ground Layer Along a Post-Fire Chronosequence. Ecosystems 11:1054–1064. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-008-9178-4
Benscoter BW, Thompson DK, Waddington JM et al (2011) Interactive effects of vegetation, soil moisture and bulk density on depth of burning of thick organic soils. International Journal of Wildland Fire 20:418. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08183
Bisbee KE, Gower ST, Norman JM, Nordheim EV (2001) Environmental controls on ground cover species composition and productivity in a boreal black spruce forest. Oecologia 129:261–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s004420100719
Canadian Forest Service (2015) Canadian national fire database – agency fire data. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/datamart/download/nfdbpoly. Accessed Oct 2015
Connolly B, Grigal D (1983) Biomass estimation equations for wetland tall shrubs. Minnesota forestry research notes 284, School of Forestry, University of Minnesota. https://hdl.handle.net/11299/58366
Cooper DJ, Andrus RE (1994) Patterns of vegetation and water chemistry in peatlands of the west-central Wind River Range, Wyoming, U.S.A. Canadian Journal of Botany 72:1586–1597. https://doi.org/10.1139/b94-196
Cornelius JM, Reynolds JF (1991) On determining the statistical significance of discontinuities with ordered ecological data. Ecology 72(6):2057–2070. https://doi.org/10.2307/1941559
Depante M, Petrone RM, Devito KJ et al (2018) Potential influence of nutrient availability along a hillslope: Peatland gradient on aspen recovery following fire. Ecohydrology 11:e1955. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1955
Depante M, Morison MQ, Petrone RM, et al. (2019) Hydraulic redistribution and hydrological controls on aspen transpiration and establishment in peatlands following wildfire. Hydrological Processes hyp 13522. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13522
Devito K, Mendoza C, Qualizza C (2012) Conceptualizing water movement in the Boreal Plains. Implications for Watershed Reconstruction. https://doi.org/10.7939/R32J4H
Devito KJ, Hokanson KJ, Moore PA et al (2017) Landscape controls on long-term runoff in subhumid heterogeneous Boreal Plains catchments. Hydrological Processes 31:2737–2751. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11213
Dimitrov DD, Bhatti JS, Grant RF (2014) The transition zones (ecotone) between boreal forests and peatlands: Ecological controls on ecosystem productivity along a transition zone between upland black spruce forest and a poor forested fen in central Saskatchewan. Ecological Modelling 291:96–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.07.020
Dufrêne M, Legendre P (1997) Species assemblages and indicator species: The need for a flexible asymmetrical approach. Ecological Monographs 67:345–366. https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9615(1997)067[0345:SAAIST]2.0.CO;2
Erni S, Wang X, Taylor S, Boulanger Y, Swystun T, Flannigan M, Parisien MA (2020) Developing a two-level fire regime zonation system for Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 50(3):259–273. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2019-0191
Faith DP, Minchin PR, Belbin L (1987) Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69:57–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00038687
Fenton MM, Waters EJ, Pawley SM, Atkinson N, Utting DJ, Mckay K (2013) Surficial geology of Alberta. Alberta Energy Regulator, AER/AGS Map 601
Flanagan PW, Cleve KV (1983) Nutrient cycling in relation to decomposition and organic-matter quality in taiga ecosystems. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 13:795–817. https://doi.org/10.1139/x83-110
Government of Alberta (2016) Air photo distribution centre. ministry of environment and parks, Government of Alberta. https://www.alberta.ca/air-photos. Accessed Oct 2015
Graham JA, Hartsock JA, Vitt DH et al (2016) Linkages between spatio-temporal patterns of environmental factors and distribution of plant assemblages across a boreal peatland complex. Boreas 45:207–219. https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.12151
Gralewicz NJ, Nelson TA, Wulder MA (2011) Spatial and temporal patterns of wildfire ignitions in Canada from 1980 to 2006. International Journal of Wildland Fire 21(3):230–242. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF10095
Gralewicz NJ, Nelson TA, Wulder MA (2012) Factors influencing national scale wildfire susceptibility in Canada. Forest Ecology and Management 265:20–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2011.10.031
Greene DF, Macdonald SE, Haeussler S et al (2007) The reduction of organic-layer depth by wildfire in the North American boreal forest and its effect on tree recruitment by seed. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37:1012–1023. https://doi.org/10.1139/X06-245
Hanes CC, Wang X, Jain P et al (2019) Fire-regime changes in Canada over the last half century. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 49:256–269. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2018-0293
Hartshorn AS, Southard RJ, Bledsoe CS (2003) Structure and Function of Peatland-Forest Ecotones in Southeastern Alaska. Soil Science Society of America Journal 67:1572–1581. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2003.1572
Hély C, Bergeron Y, Flannigan MD (2000) Effects of stand composition on fire hazard in mixed-wood Canadian boreal forest. Journal of Vegetation Science 11:813–824. https://doi.org/10.2307/3236551
Hokanson KJ, Lukenbach MC, Devito KJ et al (2016) Groundwater connectivity controls peat burn severity in the boreal plains: Groundwater Controls Peat Burn Severity. Ecohydrology 9:574–584. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1657
Hokanson KJ, Moore PA, Lukenbach MC, Devito KJ, Kettridge N, Petrone RM, Mendoza CA, Waddington JM (2018) A hydrogeological landscape framework to identify peatland wildfire smouldering hot spots. Ecohydrology 11(4):e1942. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1942
Hollingsworth TN, Johnstone JF, Bernhardt EL, Iii FSC (2013) Fire Severity Filters Regeneration Traits to Shape Community Assembly in Alaska’s Boreal Forest. PLOS ONE 8:e56033. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056033
Holmgren M, Lin C-Y, Murillo JE et al (2015) Positive shrub-tree interactions facilitate woody encroachment in boreal peatlands. Journal of Ecology 103:58–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12331
Ingram RC, Moore PA, Wilkinson S et al (2019) Postfire Soil Carbon Accumulation Does Not Recover Boreal Peatland Combustion Loss in Some Hydrogeological Settings. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeoscience 124:775–788. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JG004716
Jain P, Castellanos-Acuna D, Coogan SCP, Abatzoglou JT, Flannigan MD (2022) Observed increases in extreme fire weather driven by atmospheric humidity and temperature. Nature Climate Change 12:63–70. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01224-1
Johnson EA (1992). Fire and Vegetation Dynamics: Studies from the North American Boreal Forest. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511623516
Johnston DC, Turetsky MR, Benscoter BW, Wotton BM (2015) Fuel load, structure, and potential fire behaviour in black spruce bogs. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 45:888–899. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2014-0334
Johnstone JF, Chapin FS (2006) Fire Interval Effects on Successional Trajectory in Boreal Forests of Northwest Canada. Ecosystems 9:268–277. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-005-0061-2
Johnstone JF, Kasischke ES (2005) Stand-level effects of soil burn severity on postfire regeneration in a recently burned black spruce forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 35:2151–2163. https://doi.org/10.1139/x05-087
Johnstone JF, Hollingsworth TN, Chapin FS, Mack MC (2010) Changes in fire regime break the legacy lock on successional trajectories in Alaskan boreal forest. Global Change Biology 16:1281–1295. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02051.x
Kettridge N, Thompson DK, Bombonato L et al (2013) The ecohydrology of forested peatlands: Simulating the effects of tree shading on moss evaporation and species composition. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 118:422–435. https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrg.20043
Kettridge N, Turetsky MR, Sherwood JH et al (2015) Moderate drop in water table increases peatland vulnerability to post-fire regime shift. Scientific Reports 5:8063. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08063
Kirkman LK, Drew MB, West LT, Blood ER (1998) Ecotone characterization between upland longleaf pine/wiregrass stands and seasonally-ponded isolated wetlands. Wetlands 18:346–364. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03161530
Lambert M-C, Ung C-H, Raulier F (2005) Canadian national tree aboveground biomass equations. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 35:1996–2018. https://doi.org/10.1139/x05-112
Ludwig JA, Cornelius JM (1987) Locating discontinuities along ecological gradients. Ecology 68(2):448–450. https://doi.org/10.2307/1939277
Lukenbach MC, Devito KJ, Kettridge N et al (2015a) Hydrogeological controls on post-fire moss recovery in peatlands. Journal of Hydrology 530:405–418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.09.075
Lukenbach MC, Hokanson KJ, Moore PA et al (2015b) Hydrological controls on deep burning in a northern forested peatland. Hydrological Processes 29:4114–4124. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10440
Lukenbach MC, Devito KJ, Kettridge N et al (2016) Burn severity alters peatland moss water availability: implications for post-fire recovery. Ecohydrology 9:341–353. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1639
Mayner KM, Moore PA, Wilkinson SL et al (2018) Delineating boreal plains bog margin ecotones across hydrogeological settings for wildfire risk management. Wetlands Ecology and Management 26:1037–1046. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-018-9636-5
Nelson K, Thompson D, Hopkinson C et al (2021) Peatland-fire interactions: A review of wildland fire feedbacks and interactions in Canadian boreal peatlands. Science of The Total Environment 769:145212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145212
Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, O'Hara RB, Simpson GL, Solymos P, Stevens M, Wagner H (2015) Vegan: community ecology package. R package version 2.3–0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan
Parisien M-A, Barber QE, Flannigan MD, Jain P (2023) Broadleaf tree phenology and springtime wildfire occurrence in boreal Canada. Global Change Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16820
Pellerin S, Lagneau L-A, Lavoie M, Larocque M (2009) Environmental factors explaining the vegetation patterns in a temperate peatland. Comptes Rendus Biologies 332:720–731. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crvi.2009.04.003
Petrone RM, Silins U, Devito KJ (2007) Dynamics of evapotranspiration from a riparian pond complex in the Western Boreal Forest, Alberta, Canada. Hydrological Processes 21:1391–1401. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6298
R Core Team (2016) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R foundation for statistical computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
Randerson JT, Liu H, Flanner MG et al (2006) The Impact of Boreal Forest Fire on Climate Warming. Science 314:1130–1132. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1132075
Roberts DW (2016) labdsv: ordination and multivariate analysis for ecology. R package version 1.8.–0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=labdsv
Schiks TJ, Wotton BM, Turetsky MR, Benscoter BW (2016) Variation in fuel structure of boreal fens. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 46:683–695. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2015-0445
Stowe CJ, Kissling WD, Ohlemüller R, Wilson JB (2003) Are ecotone properties scale-dependent?: A test from a <em>Nothofagus</em> treeline in southern New Zealand. Community Ecology 4:35–42
Strack M, Price JS (2009) Moisture controls on carbon dioxide dynamics of peat- Sphagnum monoliths. Ecohydrology 2:34–41. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.36
Thompson DK, Parisien MA, Morin J, Millard K, Larsen CP, Simpson BN (2017) Fuel accumulation in a high-frequency boreal wildfire regime: from wetland to upland. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 47(7):957–964. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2016-0475
Thompson DK, Simpson BN, Whitman E, Barber QE, Parisien MA (2019) Peatland hydrological dynamics as a driver of landscape connectivity and fire activity in the boreal plain of Canada. Forests 10(7):534. https://doi.org/10.3390/f10070534
Tóth JA, Nagy PT, Krakomperger Z, Veres Z, Kotroczó Z, Kincses S, Fekete I, Papp M (2011) Effect of litter fall on soil nutrient content and pH, and its consequences in view of climate change (Síkfőkút DIRT Project). Acta Silvatica Et Lignaria Hungarica 7:75–86
Turetsky M (2002) Current disturbance and the diminishing peatland carbon sink. Geophysical Research Letters 29:1526. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GL014000
Turetsky MR, Amiro BD, Bosch E, Bhatti JS (2004) Historical burn area in western Canadian peatlands and its relationship to fire weather indices. Glob Biogeochem Cycles 18(4). https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GB002222
Turetsky MR, Crow SE, Evans RJ et al (2008) Trade-offs in resource allocation among moss species control decomposition in boreal peatlands. Journal of Ecology 96:1297–1305. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01438.x
van der Maarel E (1990) Ecotones and Ecoclines Are Different. Journal of Vegetation Science 1:135–138. https://doi.org/10.2307/3236065
Waddington JM, Morris PJ, Kettridge N et al (2015) Hydrological feedbacks in northern peatlands. Ecohydrology 8:113–127. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1493
Wagner CEV (1977) Conditions for the start and spread of crown fire. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 7:23–34. https://doi.org/10.1139/x77-004
Warner B, Rubec C (1997) The Canadian Wetland Classification System. M., 2nd edn. Waterloo, Ontario
Whitman E, Parisien M-A, Thompson DK, Flannigan MD (2019) Short-interval wildfire and drought overwhelm boreal forest resilience. Scientific Reports 9:18796. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55036-7
Wieder RK, Scott KD, Kamminga K et al (2009) Postfire carbon balance in boreal bogs of Alberta, Canada. Global Change Biology 15:63–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01756.x
Wilkinson SL, Moore PA, Waddington JM (2019) Assessing Drivers of Cross-Scale Variability in Peat Smoldering Combustion Vulnerability in Forested Boreal Peatlands. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 2:84. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00084
Woods KD, Feiveson AH, Botkin DB (1991) Statistical error analysis for biomass density and leaf area index estimation. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 21:974–989
Yu ZC (2012) Northern peatland carbon stocks and dynamics: a review. Biogeosciences 9:4071–4085. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-4071-2012
Zha T, Barr AG, van der Kamp G, Black TA, McCaughey JH, Flanagan LB (2010) Interannual variation of evapotranspiration from forest and grassland ecosystems in western Canada in relation to drought. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 150:1476–1484
Zhu X, Nimmo V, Wu J, Thomas R (2019) Sphagnum outcompetes feathermosses in their photosynthetic adaptation to postharvest black spruce forests. Botany 97:585–597. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjb-2019-0076
Zoltai SC, Morrissey LA, Livingston GP, Groot WJ (1998) Effects of fires on carbon cycling in North American boreal peatlands. Environmental Reviews 6:13–24. https://doi.org/10.1139/a98-002
Acknowledgements
We thank Rebekah Ingram, Cameron McCann, Kelly Biagi, and Samantha Stead for assistance in the field and Craig Allison (GIS), Kayla Wong, and Nicole Sandler for assistance in the lab. We thank Drs. Merritt Turetsky and Richard Petrone for comments on a previous version of the manuscript. Finally, we thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions which helped to improve the manuscript.
Funding
This research was funded by an NSERC CRD Grant (477235–2014) through a partnership with Syncrude Canada Ltd. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. to JMW.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Funding was secured by JMW. Research was designed by KMM, PAM, SLW, and JMW, data analysis was undertaken by KMM, PAM, and SLW and writing was conducted by KMM, PAM, SLW, HJMG, and JMW.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
13157_2024_1794_MOESM1_ESM.eps
Supplementary file1 Figure S1 Pairwise comparison of tree/shrub biomass between middle and margin plots across three hydrogeological settings (EPS 57 KB)
13157_2024_1794_MOESM2_ESM.eps
Supplementary file2 Figure S2 Moss vegetation community with time since fire. Individual points represent site-averaged values of abundance for each group. Curves are smoothed splines fit to true mosses (solid), feather mosses (dashed), and sphagnum (dot-dashed) (EPS 155 KB)
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Mayner, K.M., Moore, P.A., Wilkinson, S.L. et al. Differential Post-Fire Vegetation Recovery of Boreal Plains Bogs and Margins. Wetlands 44, 44 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-024-01794-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-024-01794-8