Fen restoration and ecotone creation in South East Manitoba

马尼托巴东南部的沼泽恢复和生态交错带创建

• 批准号: 565211-2021
• 负责人: Whittington, PeterPNW
• 金额: $ 3.18万
• 依托单位: Brandon University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Alliance Grants
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=754866
• 关键词: Fen; restoration; ecotone; creation; South

Peatlands are important stores of carbon, storing more carbon that the world's forests combined, despite covering only 3% of the Earth's surface. Peatlands are usually broken into two groups: bogs and fens. Bog peatlands get their water only from rain, whereas fens can get their water from streams, groundwater, as well as rain. Some of these peatlands, typically bogs, are used for horticultural peat, the 'peat moss' that you can buy at garden centres, which is used to grow vegetables and flowers in your garden or commercial greenhouses. Once the peat has been extracted, the sites need to be restored so they begin to accumulate carbon again. Most of the extracted peatlands in Canada have been restored to a bog peatland, however, sometimes it might make more sense to restore these sites to a fen peatland given the properties of the remaining peat in the field. However, we must improve our understanding about fen restoration in Canada. At the previous restoration sites, little attention was paid to linking the restoration with the surrounding landscape; often an abrupt transition between the restored site and the natural landscape surrounding it would occur. Basically, there was no ecotone between the two ecosystems, just an abrupt transition. Our research aims to address these two topics: fen restoration and ecotone creation. We are going to restore a large peat extraction site in south eastern Manitoba. At the site we are going to use different approaches to try and retain as much water on the site as possible and then measure the hydrologic and carbon cycles to see how effective our approaches are. We are also going to create a gentle slope between the natural ecosystem and the restored site, hoping to encourage the flow of water and nutrients to the restoration.

泥炭地是重要的碳储存地，尽管仅占地球表面的3%，但其储存的碳比世界森林的总和还要多。泥炭地通常分为两类：沼泽和沼泽。沼泽泥炭地只能从雨水中获得水分，而沼泽地可以从溪流、地下水和雨水中获得水分。其中一些泥炭地，通常是沼泽，用于园艺泥炭，你可以在花园中心购买的“泥炭藓”，用于在你的花园或商业温室中种植蔬菜和花卉。一旦泥炭被提取出来，这些地点就需要恢复，这样它们就开始再次积累碳。在加拿大，大多数被开采的泥炭地已经恢复为沼泽泥炭地，然而，考虑到野外剩余泥炭的性质，有时将这些地点恢复为沼泽泥炭地可能更有意义。然而，我们必须提高我们对加拿大沼泽恢复的认识。在以前的修复地点，很少注意将修复与周围景观联系起来;修复地点与周围自然景观之间经常会发生突然的过渡。基本上，两个生态系统之间没有生态交错带，只是一个突然的过渡。我们的研究旨在解决这两个主题：围栏恢复和生态交错带的创建。我们将恢复马尼托巴东南部的一个大型泥炭开采点。在现场，我们将使用不同的方法来尝试并保留尽可能多的水在网站上，然后测量水文和碳循环，看看我们的方法是多么有效。我们还将在自然生态系统和修复后的场地之间建立一个缓坡，希望鼓励水和营养物质流向修复区。