Using controlled water treatment on understory plant species to determine the effects of climate change on the boreal forest

Abstract

Climate change poses a big threat to boreal forest managers. We have set out to test how different precipitation levels will affect a number of boreal understory species across the three forest types commonly found in the boreal forest and see if the literature supports our findings. Total species abundance was higher in the Broadleaved stands compared to mixedwood and conifers stands. The Broadleaf composition had significantly more total richness than the mixedwood and conifer. Vascular and nonvascular abundance also followed the similar results as those for total abundance and was higher in broadleaved stands compared to mixedwood and conifer stands. The Broadleaf composition had similar results with vascular plant richness as with the total richness. The non-vascular compositions however, were not significantly different.