Fen restoration and ecotone creation in South East Manitoba

泥炭地是碳的重要储存地，尽管只覆盖了地球表面的3%，但它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，而沼泽可以从溪流、地下水和雨水中获得水。其中一些泥炭地，通常是沼泽，用于园艺泥炭，你可以在花园中心买到‘泥炭苔藓’，用来在你的花园或商业温室里种植蔬菜和花卉。一旦泥炭被提取出来，这些地方就需要恢复，这样它们就开始再次积累碳。加拿大大部分被开采的泥炭地已经恢复为沼泽泥炭地，然而，考虑到田地中剩余泥炭的特性，有时将这些地点恢复到沼泽泥炭地可能更有意义。然而，我们必须提高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；通常会发生修复地点与周围自然景观之间的突然过渡。基本上，这两个生态系统之间没有交错带，只是突然的过渡。我们的研究旨在解决这两个问题：沼泽恢复和交错带的创建。我们将修复马尼托巴省东南部的一个大型泥炭提取地点。在现场，我们将使用不同的方法，试图尽可能多地保留现场的水，然后测量水文和碳循环，看看我们的方法有多有效。我们还将在自然生态系统和恢复现场之间创造一条缓坡，希望鼓励水和养分的流动，以恢复。

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.