Abstract
Boreal peatlands may be vulnerable to projected changes in the wildfire regime under future climates. Extreme drying during the sensitive post-fire period may exceed peatland ecohydrological resilience, triggering long-term degradation of these globally significant carbon stocks. Despite these concerns, we show low peatland evapotranspiration at both the plot and landscape scale post-fire, in water-limited peatlands dominated by feather moss that are ubiquitous across continental western Canada. Low post-fire evapotranspiration enhance the resilience of carbon stocks in such peatlands to wildfire disturbance and reinforces their function as a regional source or water. Near-surface water repellency may provide an important, previously unexplored, regulator of peatland evapotranspiration that can induce low evapotranspiration in the initial post-fire years by restricting the supply of water to the peat surface.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 9341-9349 |
Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
Volume | 44 |
Issue number | 18 |
Early online date | 8 Sept 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 28 Sept 2017 |
Keywords
- peatland
- wildfire
- evapatranspiration
- resilience
- temperature
- water repellency
- hydrophobicity