Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Northern Research Supplement

Boreal peatlands at the southern limit of permafrost are experiencing a rapid loss of permafrost in response to climate warming. This has substantial implications for the movement, storage, and processing of water, carbon, nutrients, and mercury on the landscape. Consequently, the ability to forecast the future states of boreal permafrost peatlands is essential for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Small lakes are abundant across boreal peatlands and can offer critical insights into landscape processes as both sentinels and agents of environmental change. The proposed research centers on small lakes in discontinuous permafrost peatlands of the Dehcho region (southern Northwest Territories), one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth. Permafrost thaw in the Dehcho is occurring at unprecedented rates, often in the form of wetland thermokarst where treed permafrost peat plateaus are converted into treeless wetlands. The overall goal of the proposed research is to understand how loss of permafrost drives ecosystem change in small lakes in the Dehcho. The research will also test hypotheses regarding the role of wildfire as a driver of rapid lake ecosystem changes through accelerating permafrost thaw. A combination of approaches will be used to achieve the research aims. Lake sediment cores will be used to infer environmental changes over centuries and millennia. Synoptic field lake surveys will be used to study water quality patterns over broad spatial scales. Intensive ecological research will be conducted on lakes at the Scotty Creek Research Station to provide new insights into seasonal and interannual lake water quality trends and underlying processes. Geomatics-based approaches will be used to bolster understanding of spatial and temporal patterns gained through field studies and lake sediment cores. Collectively, the research will advance new conceptual models for predicting ecosystem change in small lakes of rapidly thawing discontinuous permafrost peatlands, which comprise ~18% of northern lake areas. Collaborations with the Dehcho First Nations and scientists at the Government of the Northwest Territories and other academic institutions will provide a mechanism to connect the research with broader efforts to understand and adapt to permafrost thaw in the Dehcho. The research will train graduate and undergraduate students who understand and can communicate the nature, drivers, and consequences of environmental change, have the skills to work collaboratively to sustainably manage freshwater resources, and the cultural awareness to contribute to reconciliation in freshwater governance in Canada.