Native ecosystems in Alberta’s boreal region are at risk for degradation from substantial anthropogenic development. In the Oils Sands Region (OSR), wetlands are particularly susceptible to degradation from energy and mining activity, which can influence plant communities through physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms. Despite a rich literature documenting impacts of human land use on water quality and aquatic invertebrates, few studies have examined the impacts on wetland vegetation communities, and none have done so at the regional level. In this study, we sought to understand how human land use, and energy-related activities in particular, influenced the composition of wetland plant communities in the OSR. We asked (1) How does the extent of energy and mining-related development compare to other anthropogenic development in the region? (2a) Do disturbed OSR wetland exhibit distinct vegetation communities and, if so, (2b) do these community types differ in development? (3) How does human land use influence the conservatism of wetland vegetation communities? To address these questions, we paired remotely-sensed spot imagery of human land use with data on the floristic composition of >400 wetlands in the region.
Results/Conclusions
Across the region, we found that total development and development related to energy and mining activity was low, with ~80% of all examined wetland area being undeveloped. Despite the low spatial extent, however, human development was negatively correlated with site-level conservatism in all five wetland classes examined (bogs, fens, marshes, shallow open water wetlands, and wet meadows). This indicates that wetlands within a highly developed landscape are inhabited by generalist species which are tolerant of environmental disturbance. Moreover, distinct floristic assemblages within each wetland class could be distinguished based on total developed area, providing additional evidence that human land use affects plant diversity. In contrast to total development, however, energy and mining development had an inconsistent or no detectable impact on wetland plant community composition at the regional level. Our findings suggest that wetland plant communities in the OSR are impacted by multiple types of human land use; further research should aim to evaluate the impacts of specific land use types using natural gradients of development intensity.