Anthropogenic tundra disturbance and patterns of response in the eastern Canadian Arctic

• Main Author: Forbes, Bruce Cameron
• Other Authors: Wenzel, George W. (advisor)
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: McGill University 1993
• Subjects: Tundra plants > Ecology > Canada; Northern; Plant succession > Canada; Vegetation dynamics > Canada; Revegetation > Canada; Arctic; Baffin Island; Canada; Cornwallis; Baffin; Tundra
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=41196

The literature of disturbance ecology reveals that, under present climatic conditions, non-native plants have little or no role in high arctic tundra revegetation. Rather, it has been suggested that indigenous flora, especially long-lived perennial graminoids, are crucial to recovery. However, few long-term data are available on past impacts within productive sedge-meadows in the High Arctic, and none which consider the non-vascular flora. This thesis combines biogeographical and patch dynamics perspectives to focus on $ geq$21 yr of natural and assisted recovery of vegetation and soils from a wide range of dated anthropogenic surface disturbances at three Canadian Arctic sites. Empirical, experimental and archival investigations were made among climatically similar, but widely disjunct, coastal lowlands of contrasting geologies on Baffin, Devon, and Cornwallis Islands. These data encompass minerotrophic and oligotrophic wetlands in which the vascular floras show minimal differentiation yet the sampled bryofloras share only 31.8% of their total taxa. The occurrences chosen for study are representative of the most widespread, small-scale human impacts in the North, including vehicular, pedestrian, construction, and pollution disturbances. It was determined that rutting from even a single passage of a tracked vehicle in summer resulted in significant reductions in species richness and biomass. On slopes $ geq$2$ sp circ$, these same small ruts have drained large areas of peatlands, a serious cumulative impact. Long-term effects of drainage include the local extinction of populations of Sphagnum spp. and rhizomatous vascular aquatics, and changes in the chemistry and thermal regime of drained mineral soils. Other effects include significant changes in biomass and the concentrations of macronutrients in the leaves of dominant species. These effects were magnified in peatlands drained where multi-pass vehicle movements occurred. Species richness displayed an inverse relationship with trampling intensity and the soils of heavily trampled ground remained severely compacted after 21 years. These patches were dominated by dense swards of ruderal grasses. Nutrient concentrations in the leaves of the latter and other colonizing and surviving species tended to increase with trampling intensity. Trampled patches and archaeological sites appeared selectively grazed by several herbivores. Although humans initiated the disturbances within these patches, it is the animals which are responsible for many of the dynamics of patch change over the long-term. Classification and ordination procedures revealed linkages between the floristic associations of trampled meadows on Baffin Island and archaeological sites on Devon and Cornwallis Islands. One critical implication is that even low levels of human impact may give rise to ruderal plant communities which are extremely persistent. These patches are poor in terms of species richness, but contribute to habitat heterogeneity at the landscape level and comprise preferred forage for local vertebrate herbivores. Archaeological excavation and restoration revealed that at least some stores of viable seed exist in both mesic and wet tundra soils and point to the importance of initial floristic composition (sensu Egler 1954). From a long-term perspective, the data establish that mesic tundra vegetation and soils are easily disturbed and recover much more slowly than their low arctic counterparts under similar disturbance regimes.