Plant succession after active layer detachment slides, in high Arctic tundra, Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Canada ...

• Main Author: Desforges, Manon
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Subjects: Arctic; Ellesmere Island; Fosheim Peninsula; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0089829; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0089829

Vegetation succession patterns and processes were studied after active layer detachment slides. These natural disturbances were grouped into four age categories in the valleys Hot Weather Creek and Big Slide Creek on the Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island (80°N). A time-space substitution was used to build a surrogate revegetation sequence in order to evaluate primary succession in the scar and secondary succession in the toes of the slides. Vegetation cover and environmental characteristics were measured using haphazard sampling along transects laid across the slide, during the summer of 1994. TWLNSPAN and detrended canonical correspondence analysis were used together to examine vegetation patterns in relation to environmental variables. Sexual reproduction effort was measured from harvested seed and seed bank samples to assess it role as one mechanism driving plant succession. The change in viable seed production for species of two life history groups (ruderal and late-sere grasses and forbs) and the ...