Deeper burning in a boreal fen peatland 1‐year post‐wildfire accelerates recovery trajectory of carbon dioxide uptake

• Published in: Ecohydrology
• Main Authors: Morison, Matthew, van Beest, Christine, Macrae, Merrin, Nwaishi, Felix, Petrone, Richard
• Other Authors: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2021
• Subjects: Fort McMurray
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eco.2277; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/eco.2277; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/eco.2277

Abstract Peatlands contain a globally significant store (30%) of soil carbon (C). Within the Canadian Western Boreal Plains, where peatlands are a dominant feature, the climate is becoming warmer and drier, coupled with an increase in forest fire incidence. The response of peatlands to forest fire is likely to be a key determinant in the future of C storage of Boreal peatlands. This study examined the impacts of fire on key environmental controls on CO 2 fluxes at the plot‐scale (using static chambers) between burned and unburned understory vegetation throughout the growing season of 2017 in a treed fen impacted by the Horse River wildfire (2016) in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Both gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) and total respiration (R tot ) were less at burned plots compared with unburned. Temporal patterns varied between the plots, where both component of CO 2 fluxes at the unburned plots were largest in June, whereas at the burned plots, CO 2 fluxes peaked in the late growing season. GEP and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) showed a positive relationship with depth of burn, with the deepest burned areas showing significantly greater CO 2 uptake , coinciding with both increased bioavailable phosphorus and greater moss recolonization. At the unburned plots, soil temperature was a dominant control on CO 2 fluxes. This work demonstrates the importance of the depth of burn to post‐fire carbon fluxes and how a knowledge of burn severity and depth can inform understanding of the recovery trajectory of northern peatlands following fire disturbance.