Increasing fire frequency and severity will increase habitat loss for a boreal forest indicator species.

ABSTRACT: Climate change will lead to more frequent and more severe fires in some areas of boreal forests, affecting the distribution and availability of late-successional forest communities. These forest communities help to protect globally significant carbon reserves beneath permafrost layers and provide habitat for many animal species, including forest-dwelling caribou. Many caribou populations are declining, yet the mechanisms by which changing fire regimes could affect caribou declines are poorly understood. We analyzed resource selection of 686 GPS-collared female caribou from three ecotypes and 15 populations in a ~600,000 km² region of northwest Canada and eastern Alaska. These populations span a wide gradient of fire frequency but experience low levels of human-caused habitat dis

SUBMITTER: Palm EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9286541 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature