Northern ecosystems in Canada are changing at a rate twice as fast as other areas of the globe due to climate change. Climate change can result in direct effects on wildlife (higher mortality, lower reproduction) but also indirect effects on their habitat through changes in vegetation (e.g. shifts in tree species composition within forests) and natural disturbances like wildfire (e.g. increase in the frequency and size of fires). In addition to climate change, northern ecosystems are affected by human disturbance primarily associated with resource development that includes: forestry, conventional oil and gas development and extraction, mineral mining, wind power, linear features and road development. Boreal caribou are a species of cultural, economic, and ecological importance in northern regions of Canada. Numerous sources have identified these anthropogenic disturbances as the most important contributor to declines of boreal caribou; yet, forecasting these disturbances, and their interactions with vegetation and natural disturbances under climate change remains a challenge.

Northern ecosystems in Canada are changing at a rate twice as fast as other areas of the globe due to climate change. Climate change can result in direct effects on wildlife (higher mortality, lower reproduction) but also indirect effects on their habitat through changes in vegetation (e.g. shifts in tree species composition within forests) and natural disturbances like wildfire (e.g. increase in the frequency and size of fires). In addition to climate change, northern ecosystems are affected by human disturbance primarily associated with resource development that includes: forestry, conventional oil and gas development and extraction, mineral mining, wind power, linear features and road development. Boreal caribou are a species of cultural, economic, and ecological importance in northern regions of Canada. Numerous sources have identified these anthropogenic disturbances as the most important contributor to declines of boreal caribou; yet, forecasting these disturbances, and their interactions with vegetation and natural disturbances under climate change remains a challenge.

Apologies to anyone trying to install reproducible, NetLogoR, and any SpaDES packages from CRAN. We had one of our dependencies (reproducible) temporarily archived, but we are in the process of submitting a fixed version, which should restore the other packages.

Northwestern Canada is one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth. The scale and rapidity of recently observed warming-induced changes indicate that this region is particularly sensitive to climate warming. Unprecedented changes in snow cover and rates of permafrost thaw are transforming ecosystems (e.g., conversion of forests to wetlands; lakes to thaw lake basins; tundra to shrub vegetation), and changing the distribution and routing of water over the landscape, which confounds predictions of ecohydrological responses to warming and changes in precipitation. Altered water flows and sediment regimes have affected the structure and function of streams, rivers, and lakes, including key waterways used for hydropower, water supply, and transportation. These changes directly affect the health, wellbeing, safety and livelihoods of northern communities. As a consequence, government decision makers, Indigenous communities, and co-management boards urgently require science-based predictive tools and user-driven mitigation and adaptation strategies to ensure that “the waters of the Northwest Territories will remain clean, abundant and productive for all time”, as envisioned in the NWT Water Stewardship Strategy.

It has been a while between posts. So, lets dive in with a simple, but technical, one.