Cultural key species vulnerability to cumulative impacts of environmental changes

PhD Project of Maxime Thomas

Directors: Nicole Fenton (UQAT-IRF), Hugo Asselin (UQAT), Mebarek Lamara (UQAT-IRF)
Collaborators: Alain Cuerrier (Université de Montréal), Yan Boulanger (Canadian Forest Service)

The boreal forest is subject to numerous and varied disturbances, which tend to increase in frequency and severity at the beginning of the 21st century. Natural disturbances, climate change and industrial exploitation interact and generate cumulative impacts that are difficult to predict. These impacts particularly affect Aboriginal communities because of their close connection to the territory. This link includes key cultural species, which have strong ecosystem and Aboriginal importance. Studying key cultural species is therefore an effective way to understand the effect of cumulative impacts on both aspects. Plant species are particularly suitable for this type of study because they are sedentary, so they are more consistently exposed to impacts than animals that can try to avoid them. The purpose of this project is to study the cumulative impacts of three key cultural species on the traditional territories of two Cree communities and one Anicinapek community. The species studied were selected in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Labrador tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) and blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) were retained, and a third species remains to be selected. The effect of cumulative impacts on these species will be studied in three ways to understand their vulnerability. 1) The range will be modelled according to environmental characteristics, for future years and under different environmental change scenarios. 2) Genetic diversity will be examined using genetic expression variation analyses between individuals of the same species. 3) Ecosystem services will be assessed based on fruit or leaf biomass and compound content of interest. The results will improve the management of key cultural species in the boreal forest.