Wetlands and wildfires: Trophic resilience in Canada’s boreal forest?

Freshwater wetlands are a key feature of the boreal landscape, where the predominant natural disturbance is wildfire. The size and frequency of wildfires, however, are increasing, especially in North America’s boreal areas. To make informed predictions about the effects of such landscape-level changes on freshwater ecosystems and the wildlife that depend on them, understanding bottom-up effects of wildfire, particularly in nutrient-limited boreal wetlands, is a key research need. To address questions related to impacts of fire on wetland trophic structure, we measured total nitrogen, total phosphorous, and chlorophyll-a concentrations, true water colour, macroinvertebrate community characteristics, and indicated breeding scaup (Aythya spp.) pairs in burned and unburned wetlands one to two years following wildfire in a boreal wetland complex in northwestern Canada. Under the trophic enrichment hypothesis, we expected that wetlands in areas recently burned by wildfires would have higher nutrient and productivity levels, darker coloured water, unique macroinvertebrate communities, and a greater abundance of breeding duck pairs than wetlands in unburned areas. Consistent with our predictions, total phosphorous and chlorophyll-a levels were approximately two-fold higher in burned than in unburned wetlands, although this effect was seasonally variable. Conversely, total nitrogen levels and true water colour were similar in burned and unburned wetlands, as were macroinvertebrate taxa and numbers of indicated breeding scaup pairs. Our results suggest that wetland ecosystems in the northwestern boreal forest have some resiliency to and may even benefit from moderate to severe fires under current climate conditions. However, concurrent with ongoing climate change in the north, fire impacts on these freshwater ecosystems are likely to intensify, and continued research will be necessary to understand whether this resilience will persist in the coming decades.

Datasets available for download

Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated October 20, 2025, 02:49 (UTC)
Created October 20, 2025, 02:49 (UTC)
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title
Title for the Dataset.
Wetlands and wildfires: Trophic resilience in Canada’s boreal forest?
Description
A description of the dataset.

Freshwater wetlands are a key feature of the boreal landscape, where the predominant natural disturbance is wildfire. The size and frequency of wildfires, however, are increasing, especially in North America’s boreal areas. To make informed predictions about the effects of such landscape-level changes on freshwater ecosystems and the wildlife that depend on them, understanding bottom-up effects of wildfire, particularly in nutrient-limited boreal wetlands, is a key research need. To address questions related to impacts of fire on wetland trophic structure, we measured total nitrogen, total phosphorous, and chlorophyll-a concentrations, true water colour, macroinvertebrate community characteristics, and indicated breeding scaup (Aythya spp.) pairs in burned and unburned wetlands one to two years following wildfire in a boreal wetland complex in northwestern Canada. Under the trophic enrichment hypothesis, we expected that wetlands in areas recently burned by wildfires would have higher nutrient and productivity levels, darker coloured water, unique macroinvertebrate communities, and a greater abundance of breeding duck pairs than wetlands in unburned areas. Consistent with our predictions, total phosphorous and chlorophyll-a levels were approximately two-fold higher in burned than in unburned wetlands, although this effect was seasonally variable. Conversely, total nitrogen levels and true water colour were similar in burned and unburned wetlands, as were macroinvertebrate taxa and numbers of indicated breeding scaup pairs. Our results suggest that wetland ecosystems in the northwestern boreal forest have some resiliency to and may even benefit from moderate to severe fires under current climate conditions. However, concurrent with ongoing climate change in the north, fire impacts on these freshwater ecosystems are likely to intensify, and continued research will be necessary to understand whether this resilience will persist in the coming decades.
Tags / Keywords
Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
2024-09-26
Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
Field Value
Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License
License used to access the dataset.
Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
Location
Location of the dataset.
https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/53fe2022-7939-4ce1-86ab-b276a8b4f837
Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner
Owner of the dataset.
Environment and Climate Change Canada | Environnement et Changement climatique Canada
Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
Government of Canada; Environment and Climate Change Canada, [email protected]
Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
[email protected]
Author
Author of the dataset.
Author Email
Email of the author.
Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
Field Value
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
10.18164/53fe2022-7939-4ce1-86ab-b276a8b4f837
Language
Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Yes
Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
Field Value
Version
Version of the datatset
None
Source
Source of the dataset.
None
Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions
Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
Field Value
Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
Field Value
Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

0 Comments

Please login or register to comment.