Turtle nesting habitat can be created as a restoration strategy to increase habitat availability or provide suitable habitat away from threats. Traditional nest habitat restoration consists of creating nesting mounds using a mix of sand and gravel. However, nesting mounds do not resemble natural turtle nesting habitat in a rock barren landscape where turtles nest in crevices and cracks in the bedrock. Therefore, our objective was to design and evaluate the success of a landscape‐appropriate design for turtle nesting habitat in a rock barren landscape. To evaluate success of the nest habitat design, we assessed the (1) survival of transplanted moss and lichen cover on created nest sites, (2) ecohydrological and physical conditions at created and natural sites, and (3) turtle egg hatching success at created and natural sites using a split‐clutch experiment. We found no difference in productivity between lichen transplants and natural sites, indicating that intact lichen transplants were successful. Moss transplant success was more variable due to moisture stress because transplants were conducted during dry conditions. In general, created nest habitat tended to have a more stable thermal and moisture regime compared to natural sites. When accounting for maternal effects, the odds of an egg hatching successfully was 6.6 times higher in a created site than a natural site. Overall, the success of our nest habitat design in the first few years suggests that this landscape‐appropriate design will be a useful restoration strategy for increasing turtle nesting habitat in rock barren landscapes.

Much of our understanding on temporary headwater streams is from arid and sub-humid environments. We know less about zero-flow periods in humid headwater catchments that experience seasonal snow cover. Our study characterised the temporal and spatial patterns of zero-flow periods for forested headwater streams in a snow-dominated landscape. We used 36 years of streamflow data from 13 headwater catchments within the Turkey Lakes Watershed located on the Canadian Shield in Ontario, Canada, near the eastern shores of Lake Superior. These headwater catchments differ substantially in their number of May-November zero-flow days (0-166 days per year) despite being clustered in a small geographical area with similar geology, physiography and vegetation cover. The catchments also experience similar continental climatic conditions with relatively even precipitation inputs throughout the year (mean annual precipitation of 1210 mm/year). Inter-annual variability in the number of zero-flow days was primarily associated with May-November precipitation and evapotranspiration. Despite the large seasonal snowpacks that form in this region, the amount of snow did not appear to influence the extent of zero-flow periods. We found that between-catchment variability in zero-flow occurrences was related to differences in catchment area and catchment properties typically associated with greater groundwater influence. Our study suggests that occurrences of zero-flows in headwater streams can be highly variable even over small geographical regions and that flow permanence may be more sensitive to spring to fall weather conditions than the influence of snow due partly to the shallow soils typically found on the Canadian Shield.

AbstractStream thermal regimes are being altered by climate change with consequences for aquatic organisms. Most documented long‐term changes in stream temperature are from large rivers. We know less about water temperature trends for small headwater streams, especially those found in northern landscapes that contain small lakes. We analyzed 36 yr of stream temperature observations from a long‐term watershed study in Ontario, Canada, to understand how headwater streams are responding to climate variability. We found that groundwater‐fed (GWF) and lake‐fed (LF) streams exhibit contrasting responses, as GWF streams warmed in the spring (0.19–0.60°C per decade) and LF streams warmed in the fall (0.39–0.72°C per decade). Both stream types exhibited weak temperature trends in summer and winter. These results highlight that a stream network perspective that includes headwater streams and small lakes, and accounts for seasonal changes in thermal regimes, is important for understanding aquatic ecosystem response to climate variability.

iWetland is a community science wetland water level monitoring platform developed by the McMaster Ecohydrology Lab and tested from 2016 to 2019 in wetlands located east of Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada. The goal of iWetland is to engage community members in wetland science while collecting data to better understand the spatiotemporal variability in water level patterns of wetlands. We installed 24 iWetland water level monitoring stations in popular hiking and camping areas where visitors can text the water level of the wetland to an online database that automatically collates the data. Here, we share our approach for developing the iWetland community science platform and its importance for monitoring all types of wetland ecosystems. From 2016 through 2019, almost 2,000 individuals recorded more than 2,600 water table measurements. The iWetland platform successfully collected accurate water table data for 24 wetlands. We discuss the successes and shortcomings of the community science platform with respect to data collection, community engagement, and participation. We found that forming mutually beneficial partnerships with community groups paired with strong outreach presence were key to the success of this community science platform. Finally, we recommend that those interested in adopting the iWetland platform in their community partner with community groups, recognize participant contributions, identify accessible sites, and host outreach activities.

This dataset contains seasonal and annual mean spot stream temperatures for the six groundwater-fed and seven lake-fed streams at the Turkey Lakes Watershed. We have also included seasonal and annual scale hydroclimatic variables (air temperature, solar radiation, discharge, precipitation, ice on/off dates, and April 1st SWE). The Turkey Lakes Watershed is approximately 65 km northwest of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. Manual spot stream temperature measurements were made by field technicians visiting the catchment outlets as part of a routine water quality monitoring program at the TLW. The stream temperature data record extends from 1983 through 2018. The stream temperature record for stream 013 is 1986-2018. Hydroclimatic data is also 1983-2018, with the exception of lake ice data which ended in 2015. See the methods section of the associated publication for more details.

Stream temperature is a critical control on aquatic habitat and a key forest management concern in many jurisdictions. Most research on stream temperature response to forest harvesting is from coniferous forests in rain-dominated watersheds and focused on the first few years following harvesting. In contrast, we know less about the harvesting impacts on stream temperature for silviculture approaches typically used in northern hardwood forests that are influenced by snow. We addressed this knowledge gap by using four decades (1980 to 2020) of spot water temperature measurements recorded at three treatment and two reference catchments (areas 4.5 to 69 ha) as part of a long-term water quality monitoring programme at the Turkey Lakes Watershed study near the eastern shores of Lake Superior. We were able to control for diel and seasonal biases in the spot temperature measurements and found that clearcut harvesting showed a summer temperature increase that persisted for 5 to 7 years after harvesting. Shelterwood and selection harvest did not exhibit a detectable change in stream temperature. These responses are consistent with observed changes in forest canopy through time and between harvesting approaches. In addition, the stream temperature responses were likely muted due to the streams being short and characterized by intermittent flow conditions, as well as the potential moderating influence of increased subsurface runoff following harvesting. Our results highlight how insights can be extracted from routine water quality programmes that were hitherto unrecognized.

Lichens and mosses are among the first organisms to colonize the open bedrock of eastern Georgian Bay, Ontario making them essential for primary soil formation and ecosystem succession, while also providing nesting habitat for turtle species‐at‐risk. However, the slow growing nature of lichen and moss makes them vulnerable to ecohydrological stresses caused by climate and land‐use change. In order to better understand how lichen and moss will respond to stressors, we examined which ecohydrological factors (e.g., near‐surface soil moisture and temperature) control the CO 2 exchange of lichen ( Cladonia spp.) and moss ( Polytrichum spp.) on rock barrens, and the time of year growth primarily occurs. Net ecosystem productivity (NEP) was significantly greater in the wet period of the growing season than the dry, with an estimated difference of 0.7 μmol m −2 s −1 for lichen, 2.9 μmol m −2 s −1 for moss, and 2.5 μmol m −2 s −1 for a moss and lichen mix. These findings indicate that the wet portions of the growing season are critical for growth, while lichen and moss have little to no productivity during the dry period. Our results indicate that near‐surface soil moisture is an indicator of the CO 2 exchange of lichen and moss, and this relationship varies among cover types. For the geographical regions where warm, dry conditions are expected to increase in duration and frequency with climate change, lichen and moss NEP will likely decrease, thus limiting the long‐term availability of nesting habitat for turtle species‐at‐risk.

Northern landscapes are dominated by a mosaic of lakes and streams, yet only a limited number of studies have explored how these lake‐stream networks influence streamflow regimes. In order to gain further insight into the hydrologic behaviour of lake‐stream systems, we conducted a study using long‐term streamflow data to investigate the annual‐, seasonal‐ and event‐scale streamflow regimes of a lake‐stream network at the Turkey Lakes Watershed (TLW) in central Ontario, Canada. Streamflow metrics were compared for seven lake and 12 no‐lake catchments within the TLW, in addition to 14 no‐lake catchments from other forested landscapes. It was difficult to attribute patterns in annual streamflow regimes to the influence of lakes due to the confounding influence of catchment size; however, streamflow regimes appeared to be less flashy at locations with more lake influence. In addition, lake catchments showed high similarity in streamflow regimes across seasons, whereas no‐lake catchments showed more similarity to lake catchments during wet seasons but less similarity during dry seasons. Event‐scale streamflow regimes further downstream from lake outlets were associated with greater increases in peakflow response and hydrograph rise rate following rain events than locations closer to lake outlets. Antecedent conditions were also important for both the peakflow response and rise rate, but less so than the amount of rainfall during the event. Variability in streamflow across lake‐stream networks appears to be driven by interactions between delayed contributions from lakes and relatively rapid runoff contributions from hillslopes and tributaries without lakes. In addition, streamflow regimes are influenced by temporal changes in lake storage deficits, which are a function of lake and catchment properties, as well as hydrometeorological conditions. Our results highlight that a network‐scale perspective that incorporates lakes and streams is needed to understand how these landscapes will hydrologically respond to environmental change.