Title: Intelligent tinkering: Do active restoration treatments promote initial ecosystem recovery after narrow linear disturbances in forested boreal fens?
Citation: Sutheimer, Colleen M.; Nielsen, Scott E., 2025, "Replication Data for: Intelligent tinkering: Do active restoration treatments promote initial ecosystem recovery after narrow linear disturbances in forested boreal fens?", https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/ZLZ2PO
Study Site: Cold Lake caribou range, Alberta
Purpose: Across forested boreal peatlands in western Canada, forestry and energy development disturb threatened Woodland caribou habitat. Federal policy requires ≥65% undisturbed habitat in caribou ranges. Practitioners are starting to restore a ubiquitous footprint, conventional seismic lines—narrow forest clearings (3–10 m wide) used for oil and gas exploration. Research has assessed tree growth and peatland surface responses to seismic line restoration separately but rarely together, creating uncertainty about which practices most benefit ecosystem recovery. A more inclusive view of restoration that embraces intelligent tinkering by considering multiple structural responses, rather than a narrow focus on one response such as forest cover, is needed for Woodland caribou habitat recovery. Here, we used an intelligent tinkering framework to analyse dominant tree (black spruce and tamarack), woody shrub and peatland surface responses simultaneously to identify whether active (inverted mounding and tree planting) relative to passive (inhibit re-disturbance and leave for natural) restoration promotes initial ecosystem recovery on seismic lines.
Abstract: We sampled and compared dominant tree, woody shrub and peatland surface responses on seismic lines and in reference adjacent fens 8–11 years after restoration treatments in the Cold Lake woodland caribou range of north-eastern Alberta, Canada. We used generalized linear mixed-effects models to compare structural responses for forested poor fens (20.2% of the Cold Lake range) and forested rich fens (17.3%) between restoration treatments and adjacent reference fens.
Supplemental Information Summary: R Script and associated data files (.CSV) for replicating analyses used in the manuscript "Intelligent tinkering: Do active restoration treatments promote initial ecosystem recovery after narrow linear disturbances in forested boreal fens?" by Colleen M. Sutheimer and Scott E. Nielsen. All analyses were conducted using R version 4.5.0. (2025-06-16)
Research: Boreal Ecosystem Recovery and Assessment (BERA)
Further Info: Sutheimer, C.M., & Nielsen, S.E. (2026). Intelligent tinkering: Do active restoration treatments promote initial ecosystem recovery after narrow linear disturbances in forested boreal fens? Journal of Applied Ecology, 63(1): https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70272
Status: Complete
Keywords:
vegetation,
reclamation/restoration,
modeling,
seismic lines,
Geographical coordinates: North: 55.67, South: 54.68 East: -110.00 West: -111.65
Bounding Temporal Extent: Start Date: 2023-01-01, End
Date: 2024-12-31
