Northern peatland ecosystem responses to climate change

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Northern peatlands are one of the world's most important stores of carbon, and have contributed to significant 'climate cooling' over the Holocene. It is now apparent that despite millennia of carbon accumulation, these stores are far from invulnerable to climate change. Important recent experimental data has shown that in some peatland types, increases in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide can result in sudden changes in plant community composition, water chemistry and biodiversity. These findings facilitated an NSERC Research Tools and Instruments grant to install a globally-unique field experiment to experimentally assess the interactive effects of elevated carbon dioxide and temperature (using direct ground heating) of two grossly understudied, yet ubiquitous fen peatland types in boreal Ontario. Taking advantage of this unique infrastructure, this Strategic Partnership Grant assembles a genes-to-ecosystems team of researchers to address five key objectives that cut across supporting, provisioning, cultural and regulating ecosystem services, all underpinned by a fundamental understanding of peatland biodiversity. We will use our experimental systems to understand the impacts of climate change on: plant, animal and microbial communities and impacts on ecosystem function; changes in belowground carbon chemistry and methane dynamics; hydrological processes that regulate the soil-plant-atmosphere exchanges; and changes in biogeochemical processes that affect mercury transformation and release. These data will be incorporated into current state-of-the-art models to both evaluate our experimental findings, and to test the ability of the models to handle dynamic disequilibria. Our research is directly aligned with the science and policy priorities of our established supporting organizations, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. This coupling ensures that the findings of this unique experiment will translate directly from basic science to policy.