Influence of tundra fire severity on vegetation recovery in the Northwest Territories

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change has driven an increase in the frequency, size, and severity of fires at high latitudes. Recent research shows that increasing fire severity in the subarctic is altering the trajectories of forest succession, but to date, research on the effect of fire severity on tundra succession has been limited. In this study, we investigated short-term recovery of shrub tundra communities following fire in the Tuktoyaktuk Coastal Plain and Anderson River Plain ecoregions of the Northwest Territories. To understand the effects of fire severity, we documented vegetation and permafrost recovery within moderately burned, severely burned, and unburned portions of six tundra fires that burned in 2012. We found that vegetation structure at moderately and severely burnt sites recovered rapidly toward pre-fire levels, but that differences in community composition, characterized by a decrease in shrub and lichen cover as well as an increase in abundance of ruderals and graminoids, persisted at severely burned sites. The persistence of thermal changes and increased thaw depth indicate that while biotic recovery can occur promptly, severe fire may have long-term impacts on belowground conditions.