Relating Fish Hg to Variations in Sediment Hg, Climate and Atmospheric Deposition

This article addresses total fish Hg concentrations (THg) by variations in lake Sediment THg, atmospheric Hg deposition (atmHgdep), and climate, i.e., mean annual precipitation (ppt) and air temperature. The Fish THg data were taken from the 1967-to-2010 Fish Mercury Datalayer (FIMDAC). This compilation was standardized for 12-cm long Yellow Perch in accordance with the USGS National Descriptive Model for Mercury in Fish (NDMMF [1]), and documents Fish THg across 1936 non-contaminated lakes in Canada. About 40% of the standardized Fish THg variations related positively to increasing ppt and Sediment THg, but negatively to increasing mean annual July temperature (TJuly). Only 20% of the Fish THg variations related positively to atmHgdep alone. Increasing TJuly likely influences Fish Hg through increased lake and upslope Hg volatilization, in-fish growth dilution, and temperature-induced demethylization. FIMDAC Fish THg effectively did not change over time while atmHgdep decreased. Similarly, the above Fish Hg trends would likely not change much based on projecting the above observations into the future using current 2070 climate-change projections across Canada and the continental US. Regionally, the projected changes in Fish Hg would mostly increase with increasing ppt. Additional not-yet mapped increases are expected to occur in subarctic regions subject to increasing permafrost decline. Locally, Fish THg would continue to be affected by upwind and upslope pollution sources, and by lake-by-lake changes in water aeration and rates of lake-water inversions.

Assessing Soil-Related Black Spruce and White Spruce Plantation Productivity

This article focuses on modelling and mapping the productivity of black (Picea mariana) and white spruce (Picea glauca) plantations across the Black Brook forest management area in northwestern New Brunswick, Canada, encompassing about 200,000 ha. This effort involved establishing 3500 50 m2 survey plots, each informing about: plantation age (15 to 43 years), planted species type, stem count, tree height, basal area, and wood volume. All of this was supplemented with location-specific productivity predictors, i.e., xy location and specifications pertaining to soil type, soil drainage (established through digital elevation modelling by way of the depth-to-water index DTW), and years since thinning (pre-commercial and commercial), and. The DTW index, as it emulates the elevation rise away from open water features such as streams, rivers and lakes, allowed the re-mapping of existing soil borders by topographic position and drainage association. Non-linear regression analysis revealed that plantation height, basal area and volume all increased with plantation age, as to be expected. Pre-commercial thinning in plantations <30 years old had a positive while the more recent commercial thinning still had the negative effect on standing wood volume and mean annual volume increment (MAI). White spruce MAI generally exceeded black spruce (MAI) by a factor of 1.25. Poor and excessive soil drainage reduced MAI. Best growth performances occurred on plantations established on well-drained calcareous soils. The best-fitted results so obtained allowed for generating black and white spruce MAI maps across the forest management area by ridge-to-valley soil and DTW location at 10 m resolution. These maps were subsequently used for site-by-site silvicultural evaluation and ranking purposes.