DOI: 10.5061/dryad.xd2547dmj
title: Rove beetle (Staphylinidae) assemblages following the cumulative effect of wildfire and linear footprint in Boreal treed peatlands of northeastern Alberta (Canada)

description: Cumulative effects of anthropogenic and natural disturbances have become
 increasingly relevant in the context of biodiversity
 conservation. Oil and gas (OG) exploration and extraction
 activities have created thousands of kilometers of linear footprints in
 boreal ecosystems of Alberta, Canada. Among these disturbances, seismic
 lines (narrow corridors cut through the forest) are one of the most common
 footprints and have become a significant landscape
 feature influencing the maintenance of forest interior habitats and
 biodiversity. Wildfire is a common stand-replacing natural
 disturbance in the boreal forest, and as such, it is hypothesized that its
 effects can mitigate the linear footprint associated with OG exploration,
 but only a few studies have examined its
 effectiveness. We studied the short-term (1 year
 post-fire) response of rove beetle assemblages to the
 combined effects of wildfire and linear footprint in
 forest, edge and seismic line habitats at burned and unburned peatlands
 along the southwest perimeter of the 2016 Horse River wildfire (Fort
 McMurray). While rove beetle species richness was higher in
 seismic lines in both burned and unburned habitats compared to the
 adjacent peatland, diversity was greater only in seismic lines of burned
 areas. Abundance was lower in the burned adjacent peatland but similarly
 higher in the remaining habitats. Assemblage composition on seismic lines
 was significantly different from that in the adjacent forest and edge
 habitats within both burned and unburned sites. Moreover, species
 composition in burned seismic lines was different to either unburned lines
 or burned forest and edge. Euaesthethus
 laeviusculus and Gabrius picipennis were indicator
 species of burned line habitats, are sensitive to post-fire landscape and
 can occupy wet habitats with moss cover more efficiently than when these
 habitats are surrounded by unburned forest. Although these results are
 based on short-term responses, they suggest that wildfire did not reduce
 the linear footprint, and instead, the cumulative effect of these two
 disturbances had a more complex influence on rove beetle recovery at the
 landscape level than for other invertebrates. Therefore, continued
 monitoring of these sites can become useful to evaluate changes over time
 and to better understand longer-term biodiversity responses to the
 cumulative effects of wildfire and linear disturbances in boreal treed
 peatlands, given the long-lasting effect of such disturbances.
description: This study was conducted along the southwest perimeter of the
 2016 Horse River wildfire, south of Fort McMurry, Alberta (56°46′13″ N,
 118°22′28″ W). This area included 15 peatland sites within (“Burned”, n=9)
 and outside the burned area (“Unburned”, n=6). Sites were disturbed by
 conventional seismic lines that were built 15-20 years prior to the
 wildfire event. All sites were at least 200 m from roads and were at least
 2.4 km from each other. Sites were located in treed
 peatlands dominated by black spruce (<em>Picea
 mariana </em>(Miller) Britton, Sterns &
 Poggenburgh)<em> </em>in the overstory, and sphagnum
 (<em>Sphagnum</em> L. spp.), bog haircap
 (<em>Polytrichum stictum </em>Brid.), red-stemmed feathermoss
 (<em>Pleurozium schreberi </em>(Brid.) Mitt.), sedges
 (<em>Carex </em>L. spp.), horsetails
 (<em>Equisetum </em>L. spp.), three-leaved false Solomon’s
 seal (<em>Maianthemum trifolium </em>(L.) Sloboda), Labrador
 tea (<em>Rhododendrum greoenlandicum </em>(Oeder) Kron
 & Jud), cloudberry (<em>Rubus chamaemorus </em>L.),
 mountain cranberry (<em>Vaccinium vitis-idaea </em>L.),
 bogbirch (<em>Betula pumila</em> L.), and willows
 (<em>Salix </em>L.<em> </em>spp.)
 in the understory. For sites within the fire perimeter, severity of burns
 was low on seismic lines but severe in both forest and edge
 habitats.<em> </em>At each site, we installed three parallel
 50 m transects, each in one of three habitat types: along the center of
 the seismic line (“Line” habitat), along the forest edge approximately 10
 m from the line (“Edge” habitat), and in the adjacent peatland
 approximately 50 m from the line (“Forest” habitat). Edge and Forest
 transects were located on the same side of the seismic line at each site.
 We collected rove beetles using pitfall traps (1L in volume, 12 cm
 diameter) dug into the peat with their upper rims leveled with the ground
 surface. Traps were filled with approximately 200 ml of propylene glycol
 as a killing agent and preservative, and were covered with a suspended
 opaque plastic roof to minimize flooding by rainfall and accumulation of
 debris. Along each transect, we installed five traps every 10 m for a
 total of 15 traps/site. We collected trap contents at three-week intervals
 between May 20 and September 15 of 2017. Adult rove beetles were sorted
 out from the pitfall samples in the laboratory and identified to the
 species level using relevant taxonomic literature. Specimens in the
 subfamily Pselaphinae were identified to the genus level since reliable
 taxonomic keys for local species are not available. Species in the
 subfamily Aleocharinae were excluded due todifficulties in species-level
 identification. Voucher specimens are deposited in the Invertebrate Museum
 at the Northern Forestry Center (Natural Resources Canada – Canadian
 Forest Service) in Edmonton, Alberta.
description: Data are provided as four tables in separate spreadsheets. The
 first data sheet provides the longitude and latitude of research sites
 across the study area. The second data sheet provides a list of
 staphylinid species with their corresponding species ID (used in the
 community table). The third sheet provides the raw  species abundance by
 date of collection and habitat in long format. The fourth data sheed
 provides the standardized catches for each species by habitat type in wide
 format (rows representing habitat types (burned and unburned seismic
 lines, forest edges and forest interior) at each site and columns
 representing species (species ID).