The Distribution of Shrubs used by Indigenous Peoples within the Forest-Tundra Ecotone in Canada

• Main Author: St.Louis, Danielle
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Mealy Mountains; Yukon; Churchill; Climate change; Tundra
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10222/76550

ENVS 4902 Environmental Science Undergraduate Honours Thesis Recent densification of shrub cover has been documented in many Arctic regions. Indigenous people have also reported changes in cover and distribution of useful plants (e.g., berries) on their traditional lands. Many studies have focused on factors influencing shrub densification with climate change, but less consideration has been given to the potential changes in shrub spatial pattern across the forest-tundra ecotone which may provide valuable insight into how a response to climate change is being initiated. I investigated trends in abundance and spatial pattern of six shrub species across the forest-tundra ecotone in the Mt. Nansen region of the Yukon, near Churchill, Manitoba and in the Mealy Mountains of southern Labrador, Canada. Shrub cover was measured in contiguous quadrats along transects up to 100 m long located in Forest, Ecotone, and Tundra sections across the forest–tundra transition. Spatial patterns were analyzed using new local variance to estimate patch size and wavelet analysis to determine the scale and amount of aggregation. Results were site-specific, as Churchill had the highest abundance and largest patch sizes in the Forest, opposite to what was found in Mealys and Nansen. Factors such as local topography, interaction between trees and shrubs, and microclimate could cause these differences across the forest-tundra ecotone. However, in all study areas, the greatest distance between patches of shrubs was found in the Ecotone. With climate change, shrubs across the forest-tundra ecotone will likely undergo change, which will likely vary at different sites. Indigenous communities may need to refer to current strategies (i.e., information sharing networks, resource management) used to cope with seasonal variation in productivity of useful plants to deal with more long term changes in shrub cover and distribution