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30
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FIRE IN THE ARCTIC:
e eect of wildre across diverse aquatic
ecosystems of the Northwest Territories
dierenate the eects of wildre from other landscape
variables that cumulavely impact aquac ecosystem
health. While wildre had a clear eect on the chemical
composion of pore waters, this eect was diminished
at the stream outlet and at the landscape scale. Rather
than having an overriding eect on water quality, wildre
appears to be one of many landscape variables that act
in concert to determine water quality in the southern
NWT.
Introduction
During the summer of 2014, the southern Northwest
Territories (NWT) experienced an unprecedented
wildre season, with a burn footprint that spread across
two ecoregions (the Taiga Plains and Taiga Shield), and a
landscape underlain by a mosaic of permafrost coverage,
vegetaon type, and previous re history (Fig. 1, 2).
Our study was conducted across the Dehcho, Tłı
̨
chǫ-
Suggested citation:
Tank, S.E., Olefeldt, D., Quinton, W.L., Spence, C., Dion, N., Ackley, C., Burd, K., Hutchins, R., and Mengistu, S., 2018. Fire in the Arctic: The effect of
wildre across diverse aquatic ecosystems of the Northwest Territories. Polar Knowledge: Aqhaliat 2018, Polar Knowledge Canada, p. 31–38.
DOI: 10.35298/pkc.2018.04
During the summer of 2014, the southern Northwest
Territories (NWT) experienced an unprecedented
wildre season, with burned areas spread across two
ecoregions (the Taiga Plains and Taiga Shield) and a
landscape underlain by a mosaic of permafrost coverage,
vegetaon type, and previous re history. Our study was
conducted across the Dehcho, Tłı
̨
chǫ-Wek’èezhii, and
Akaitcho Regions of the NWT, which encompass the most
signicantly burned areas from the 2014 re season.
Within these regions, we worked in paired burned–
unburned catchments on the Taiga Plains and Taiga
Shield to examine responses to re within ground and
surface waters. We addionally examined water quality
across a series of 50 catchments that were straed
across ecoregion and by re history, and varied in within-
catchment characteriscs such as wetland extent. This
sampling scheme which covers as signicant a range
of landscape variability as possible is allowing us to
Wilkinson, P. R. 1967. The distribuon of Dermacentor
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H. 1987. An outbreak of schistosomiasis in Atlanc Brant
geese, Branta bernicla hrota. Journal of Wildlife Diseases
23:248–255.
World Health Organizaon. 2018. Echinococcosis.
Available from hp://www.who.int/news-room/fact-
sheets/detail/echinococcosis [accessed 30 September
2018].
Sco, J. D., Fernando, K., Banerjee, S. N., Durden, L. A.,
Byrne, S. K., Banerjee, M., Mann, R. B., and Morshed,
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Medical Entomology 38:493–500.
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Atlanc provinces of Canada 1971–1976. Canadian
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Thompson, R. C., Boxell, A. C., Ralston, B. J., Constanne,
C. C., Hobbs, R. P., Shury, T., and Olson, M. E. 2006.
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Echinococcus in cervids from North America. Parasitology
132:439–447.
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the prevalence of trichinosis in animals in Arcc and
Antarcc waters. Nordisk Veterinaermedicin 8:115–129.
Suzanne E. T
ank
1 *
, David Olefeldt
2
, William L. Quinton
3
, Christopher Spence
4
, Nicole Dion
5
, Caren Ackley
3
,
Katheryn Burd
2
, Ryan Hutchins
1
, and Samson Mengistu
1
1
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
2
Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
3
Centre for Cold Regions and Water Science, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
4
Environment and Climate Change Canada, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
5
Water Resources Department, Government of Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
Abstract
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diverse landscape types, and thus, also understand
changes in natural resources (food webs, sh) and
infrastructure (drinking water) that might result.
Methods
Our cascading hillslope - to catchment - to landscape
design took a three-ered approach. First, we worked
within targeted burned and unburned sites on the
Taiga Plains (Notawohka and Scoy Creeks) and Taiga
Shield (Boundary and Baker Creeks; Fig. 2) to examine
the eects of wildre on ground temperature, snow
accumulaon, frost-table depth, and the chemical
composion of water available for runo downslope to
streams (i.e., mobile pore water). Second, we undertook
frequent measures of stream-outlet chemistry within
these paired catchments, to beer understand the ne-
scale response of catchments to wildre. Finally, we
undertook a synopc survey of 50 burned and unburned
catchments (Fig. 2) during June-July of 2016 and May-
June of 2017, with a subset of these catchments being
addionally sampled in August and September of 2016.
This work was carried out as a collaborave eort
between academic researchers, Federal government
sciensts, and aquac sciensts from the Government
of the Northwest Territories (GNWT). Residents of the
layer and underlying permafrost; Gibson 2017), which
can enable the ow of water and associated chemical
constuents throughout the year. These wildre-
associated changes in water chemistry are important
because changes in within-stream concentraons of
nutrients, organics, sediments, and contaminants may
in turn alter the ecological funconing of freshwater
systems (see, for example, Minshall et al. 2001, Allen et
al. 2005, Kelly et al. 2006, Smith et al. 2011, and Silins et
al. 2014).
Although the inuence of wildre on water chemistry
has been invesgated in some northern hillslope systems
and within small Subarcc catchments, including in
Alaska (Bes and Jones 2009, Koch et al. 2014), it has
been poorly studied in the NWT. This is of concern from
an NWT-specic perspecve, because the Subarcc
landscape is composed of a diversity of region-specic
landscape features, which may act cumulavely and in
disnct ways to inuence downslope water chemistry.
Given that wildre frequency is increasing in northern
Canada (Kasischke and Turetsky 2006; Flannigan et al.
2009), it is imperave that we undertake region-specic
assessments of its eect on aquac and other ecosystem
components. Such targeted assessments will help to
predict how re might aect aquac ecosystems across
ecosystems. For example, combuson of organic layers
and loss of vegetaon can increase nutrients (Bes and
Jones 2009; Fig. 2) and toxins like mercury (Kelly et al.
2006) but decrease organics (Bes and Jones 2009) in
recipient aquac ecosystems, although results can also
be mixed (e.g., Olefeldt et al. 2013). Following wildre,
the burn scar is also more suscepble to permafrost
thaw than adjacent undisturbed areas, because the
loss of tree canopy allows greater energy loading at
the ground surface, while the blackened ground also
absorbs more energy. The resultant deepening of acve
layers can further aect the chemistry of water owing
from land to streams, as soils that were previously frozen
become available for contact with water. In On the Taiga
Shield, soils typically consist of organic horizons down
to bedrock, with thin mineral soils. In contrast, deep
peatlands are abundant on the Taiga Plains, but the
underlying soil is composed of thick mineral lls. Thus,
the eect of wildre might be expected to fundamentally
dier between these two regions, with increases in
organics where deepening or lengthening ow paths
enable access to organic soils, and increases in inorganic
nutrients (e.g., nitrate and phosphate) and ions where
water is routed through inorganic horizons. Deepening
thaw can also encourage the establishment of taliks (i.e.,
a perennially thawed layer between the overlying acve
Wek’èezhii, and Akaitcho Regions, which encompass
the most extensively burned areas from the 2014 re
season. We undertook a ered hillslope - to catchment
- to landscape approach to understand how the eects
of re cascade through aquac ecosystems, from the
smallest scale (hillslope pore waters) to the largest scale
(the southern NWT landscape). To do this, we coupled
intensive measurements of pore-water and stream-
outlet chemistry in selected burned and unburned
catchments with a series of extensive measurements
across 50 catchments that varied by within-catchment
re extent, ecoregion, and characteriscs such as
wetland extent (Fig. 2). This design is allowing us to
explore the mechanisc eects of wildre on stream
water quality, while also dierenang these eects
from other landscape variables that cumulavely aect
the characteriscs of aquac ecosystems.
Previous research has shown that wildre can
substanally alter the chemistry of downslope freshwater
Figure 1: Images of burned regions on the Taiga Shield (a;
Boundary Creek) and Taiga Plains (b; Spence Creek); potenal
nutrient eects downstream of a burn scar (c; algal mats
in Notawohka Creek that are not common elsewhere); and
recovery from burn two years post-re (d; stream draining to
Lac La Martre, Wha).
Figure 2: (a) Sampling locaons superimposed on the 2013–2016 re perimeters (the paired burned-unburned catchments
that were the focus of our intensive measurements are indicated in blue; the 50 synopc sampling locaons are indicated in
orange) and (b) Fire history for the region, with the more detailed area of panel (a) indicated by a box.
a)
b)
c)
d)
a) b)
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other variable landscape characteriscs to cause a clear
eect on water chemistry across the synopc sites that
we invesgated.
It is worth nong that the synopc study results that we
present were collected during relavely low-ow mid-
summer condions, when connecvity between streams
and the landscape can be low, and also two summers
following the 2014 burn season (i.e., for samples
collected during summer 2016; Fig. 1d shows a typical
catchment two years post-re). Our paired catchment
work did suggest that constuents including DOC, ions,
and selected metals were elevated in the spring runo
period immediately post-re (see, for example, the
evidence of increased nutrients immediately post-re
in Fig. 1c). However, this eect was short lived. Across
the southern NWT, it appears that wildre is but one of
export over the full season in paired burned-unburned
catchments was much more modest (Fig. 5b). Across the 50
synopc sites that were sampled mid-summer 2016, this
dierence disappears, with no overriding eect of wildre
on DOC concentraon (Fig. 5c) across the wide variety of
watersheds that we sampled (Fig. 4). This overall nding
of weak to no eects of wildre at the synopc scale was
consistent across other key water-quality parameters. For
example, nutrients, which drive primary producon at the
base of aquac food webs (total dissolved nitrogen; total
dissolved phosphorus; Fig. 5d and 5e), and ions, which can
be indicave of changing (deepening and/or transioning
to perennial) ow paths on land (using calcium as an
example; Fig. 5f), also showed no dierence between
burned and unburned catchments. Although in some
cases there were dierences in chemical constuents
between ecoregions (e.g., Fig. 5f), wildre did not override
Doppler Velocimeter (SonTek Inc., San Diego, CA) and
the cross-seconal area-velocity method.
Catchment boundaries were delineated from a
20-metre digital elevaon model (hp://geogras.
gc.ca), using ArcGIS (10.5) with the hydrology toolbox.
Catchment-outlet coordinates acquired during sample
collecon were used as pour points for the delineaons.
Catchment delineaons were used to derive catchment
characteriscs, including slope and percent cover of
various landscape types (Canadian Land Cover, circa
2000 (Vector) - GeoBase Series). Catchment re scar
areas were extracted from Naonal Fire Database GIS
layers provided by the Canadian Forest Service.
Preliminary results
Collaboraon with government partners and community
assistance allowed us to achieve strong temporal and
spaal coverage in our sampling eorts. Our paired
catchment work successfully captured inial spring ows in
2015, which represented the rst runo pulse following the
2014 wildre season (Fig. 3). Subsequent sampling enabled
excellent coverage of the spring freshet in 2016 and 2017,
and connued collecon throughout each of the three
sample years in cases where ows connued under ice (e.g.,
Boundary Creek; Fig. 3). Our synopc survey eecvely
captured a range of landscapes within each of the Taiga
Plains and Taiga Shield. For example, the within-watershed
coverage of lakes and wetlands varied from levels near
zero percent to greater than 80% of the catchment, while
mean catchment slope — an important regulator of water
residence on the landscape varied across a substanal
gradient in each of the two ecoregions (Fig. 4). Wildre-
aected catchments were well distributed across these
landscape gradients, and encompassed about half of the
catchments surveyed. Shield and Plains regions diered in
their proporon of lakes, wetlands, and mean catchment
slope, following the underlying dierences between these
physiographic regions.
Burned and unburned sites clearly diered in their water
chemistry at the plot scale, but these dierences appeared
to diminish with movement through the hydrologic
network (Fig. 5). For example, using dissolved organic
carbon (DOC) as a model chemical species, our results
show elevated DOC concentraons in burned pore waters
of the Taiga Plains (Fig. 5a), but that this signal dampens
at the catchment outlet, where the increase in DOC
communies of Jean Marie River, Fort Simpson, Whatì,
Wekweètì, and Gamètì were also integral to project planning
and sample collection, as outlined below.
To target water available for movement downslope, pore-
water samples were collected at the water table using
MacroRhizon samplers (0.15 µm pore size; Rhizosphere
Research Products, Wageningen, the Netherlands) (Burd
et al. 2018) or by ltering water collected from pit samples
(Sartorius 0.45 µm). Samples for this component were
analyzed at the University of Alberta, either in individual
laboratories or at the CALA-accredited (ISO 17025)
Biogeochemical Analycal Service Laboratory (BASL).
Our targeted paired burned-unburned catchments were
sampled weekly for four weeks following the onset of
ow in the spring, and monthly thereaer in each of
2015, 2016, and 2017. Paired catchment-outlet samples
were collected using protocols established by the
GNWT Water Resources Division, and the samples were
analyzed at the GWNT Taiga Environmental Laboratory.
Pre-exisng (Baker Creek, unburned) and project-specic
(Boundary Creek, burned) meteorological staons on the
Taiga Shield collected air temperature, relave humidity,
net radiaon, wind speed, and rainfall, and were coupled
with frost-table measurements in burned and unburned
terrains in Baker, Boundary, and Scoy Creeks.
For our 50-site synopc surveys, we accessed all possible
streams located near Highways 1 and 3, and addionally
worked with the communies of Wha, Wekweè, and
Gamè to access stream sites from the lakes on which
these communies are located. Sampling locaons
were straed across burned and unburned terrains.
Chemistry samples were collected following standard
protocols, eld-ltered (pre-combusted Whatman GF/F
lters, 0.7 µm pore size), and stored chilled, in the dark,
for later analysis at the University of Alberta’s BASL.
To allow us to calculate constuent export and normalize
total constuent ux by watershed area (i.e., yield; Tank
et al. 2012), we also measured discharge at each site.
Of the four paired catchment sites, discharge data are
acvely collected by the Water Survey of Canada at Scoy
and Baker Creeks. For Boundary and Notawohka Creeks,
discharge was determined using in-stream pressure
transducers and the development of stage-discharge
rang curves. For the 50 synopc sites, point discharge
was measured concurrent with water chemistry sample
collecon using a FlowTracker2 hand-held Acousc
Figure 3: Sampling dates (circles) superimposed on discharge hydrographs for the paired catchment sites to show sample
coverage across varying ow condions: (a) Scoy and Notawohka Creeks sampling dates superimposed on the Scoy Creek
hydrograph, (b) Baker Creek sampling dates superimposed on the Baker Creek hydrograph (note log scale), and (c) Boundary
Creek sampling dates superimposed on the Boundary Creek hydrograph.
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In Jean Marie River, we were fortunate to have Derek
Norwegian, Bill Norwegian, Douglas Norwegian, Richard
Sanguez, Stanley Sanguez, and Borris Sanguez assisng
with our sampling eorts. Funding for this research was
from Polar Canada, the Cumulave Impacts Monitoring
Program, the Campus Alberta Innovates Program, and
the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
of Canada, as well as in-kind support from the GNWT.
References
Allen, E.W., Prepas, E.E., Gabos, S., Strachan, W.M.J.,
and Zhang, W.P. 2005. Methyl mercury concentraons
in macroinvertebrates and sh from burned and
undisturbed lakes on the Boreal Plain. Canadian Journal
of Fisheries and Aquac Sciences 62:1963–1977. doi:
10.1139/f05-103.
concern. These linkages are also ongoing in associated
projects.
Acknowledgements
This research would not have occurred without the
assistance of community directors in the Tłı
̨
chǫ region
(April Alexis and Shirley Dokum, Wha; Gloria Ekendia-
Gon, Gamè; Adeline Football, Wekweè) and Chief
Gladys Norwegian in Jean Marie River. These individuals
idened community members who were instrumental
in guiding our use of local lands and assisng us to idenfy
streams within each of the communies where we
conducted this work. Wayne and Lynn McKay were also
crical for our paired sampling on the Taiga Plains. In the
Tłı
̨
chǫ region, we were fortunate to have Lloyd Bishop
(Wha), Alfred Arrowmaker (Gamè), and William Quie
(Wekweè) directly involved in our sampling eorts.
res aected the majority of NWT residents, resulng
in road closures, mulple community evacuaons, and
signicant concern about the ecological and human
health eects of this catastrophic disturbance (Baltzer
and Johnstone 2015). This concern led to a collaborave
workshop that assembled Territorial government
sciensts and managers, academic sciensts, and Federal
government sciensts. It was this workshop that was the
genesis for this work. Our research occurred in direct
collaboraon with sta of the GNWT Water Resources
Division, who helped with the study design and played
a key role in eld eorts. Their central involvement in
these eorts has been crical for ensuring that Territorial
priories are being met as part of this research eort.
We used a variety of avenues to enable linkages between
our research and local communies. Our sampling
in the Tłı
̨
chǫ region (summers of 2016 and 2017) was
facilitated by local community directors, and occurred in
associaon with local guides who were instrumental in
nalizing site-selecon decisions and assisng with our
access to local lands. Work in the Dehcho occurred in
collaboraon with members of the Jean Marie River First
Naon who assisted with sampling a local stream (Spence
Creek) that burned extensively during the 2014 re. We
have found these partnerships to be crical for ensuring
that sampling eorts are appropriately targeng areas of
many landscape controls on the funconing of aquac
ecosystems, and that this disturbance does not have an
overriding eect on water quality at the mul-year scale.
Conclusions
The results of this project indicate that re does not have
a long-lasng eect on downstream water chemistry
in streams across the southern NWT. This result is
somewhat contradictory to studies from Subarcc
Alaska and non-permafrost aected boreal regions in
Alberta, which have shown clear eects of wildre on
stream water nutrients, organics, and toxins (Bes and
Jones 2009, Kelly et al. 2006). Instead, this research may
add to other emerging studies that are showing aquac
ecosystems to be relavely resilient to the eects of
wildre in their catchments (e.g., Lewis et al. 2014), and
suggests that — over yearly me scales — the eects of
wildre are relavely small compared to other spaally
variable drivers of water chemistry, and therefore
dicult to dierenate from background variability.
Community considerations
The 2014 wildre season burned 3.4 million hectares
of land (Fig. 1). Because the area of disturbance was
largely in the more densely inhabited southern NWT,
Figure 4: The distribuon of synopc sampling sites across a range of landscape condions (each point shows an individual
catchment): (a) slope, (b) percent lake cover, and (c) percent wetland cover for sites on the Taiga Plains (blue) and Taiga
Shield (orange). Within each landscape type, burned sites are shown as circles outlined in red and unburned sites are shown
as triangles outlined in black. Individual sample sites are ordered by increasing coverage of the within-catchment landscape
condion; note the dierences in scale on the y-axis.
Figure 5: Constuent concentraons and yields (area-normalized exports) across burned (B) and unburned (UB) sites, for
sampling at scales ranging from pore waters to the broad landscape: (a) pore-water concentraons of dissolved organic
carbon (DOC) in burned and unburned plots of the Scoy Creek catchment; (b) catchment-outlet DOC yields for Scoy
Creek (>99.8% unburned) and Notawohka Creek (>90% burned) through the enre 2016 season; (c) synopc-scale DOC
concentraons from across the 50 catchments for samples collected during summer 2016; and (d, e, f) synopc-scale total
dissolved nitrogen (TDN), total dissolved phosphorus (TDP), and dissolved calcium (Ca) concentraons, all from summer 2016.
REPORT 2018 39
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ARCTIC MARINE ECOLOGY BENCHMARKING PROGRAM:
Monitoring biodiversity using scuba
few scuba diving surveys of nearshore marine ora and
fauna in the Canadian Arcc, which faces increasing risk
due to climate change, invasive species, and increased
human acvity. This project addresses this signicant gap
by establishing baseline biodiversity data and iniang
long-term nearshore monitoring near Cambridge Bay,
Nunavut.
Methods
Scuba diving
Dives were completed by Ocean Wise divers holding a
Scienc Diver Level II rang, as dened by the Canadian
Associaon for Underwater Science (caus.ca) Standard
of Pracce for Scienc Diving, and were planned using
DCIEM Air Diving Tables as no-decompression dives
using compressed air. No more than two dives per day
per diver were undertaken. Dives met the requirements
of the Nunavut Occupaonal Health and Safety
Regulaons: Part 20, Diving Operaons. The project
included a combinaon of shore- and boat-based dives.
Suggested citation:
Schultz, J., Heywood, J., Gibbs, D., Borden, L., Kent, D., Neale, M., Kulcsar, C., Banwait, R., and Trethewey, L. 2018. Arctic Marine ecology benchmarking
program: Monitoring biodiversity using scuba. Polar Knowledge: Aqhaliat 2018, Polar Knowledge Canada, p. 39–45. DOI: 10.35298/pkc.2018.05
Abstract
Building on the catalogue of data gathered during the
2015 and 2016 Nearshore Ecological Surveys, the 2017
Arcc Marine Ecology Benchmarking Program (AMEBP)
collected biodiversity and abundance data on marine
algae, invertebrates, and sh species using scuba diving
at selected sites near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in the
summer of 2017. The project served as a pilot study to
assess scuba diving survey modes (transect vs. taxon)
and make recommendaons for future research and
monitoring eorts. This paper is a summary of the 2017
Arcc Marine Ecology Benchmarking Program Final
Report (available on request).
Introduction
Reliable baseline data and ongoing monitoring are
essenal for developing a full understanding of the
changes underway in Canada’s Arcc, thereby enabling
the development of eecve management strategies
and conservaon plans. The nearshore ecosystem is a key
part of the larger marine ecosystem, because it is where
most direct human impact, such as boang, hunng, and
harvesng, takes place. However, there have been very
Jessica Schultz
1
, Jeremy Heywood
1 *
, Donna Gibbs
1
, Laura Borden
1
, Danny Kent
1
, Mackenzie Neale
1
,
Crystal Kulcsar
1
, Ruby Banwait
1
, and Laura Trethewey
1
1
Ocean Wise Conservation Association, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The Ocean Wise Conservation Association (OWCA, ocean.org) is a global ocean conservation organization focused
on protecting and restoring our world’s oceans.
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