Study sites:

• Pluvier
• Pointe de l’Est

Person in charge: Michelle Garneau (UQAM)

Graduate student: Léonie Perrier (M. Sc., UQAM)

Peatlands are an important component of Anticosti Island's natural landscape, covering approximately 25% of its surface area. Despite their relatively large surface area, the conditions favouring their establishment and development in the regional landscape remain poorly understood. The aim of the project is to reconstruct Holocene ecohydroclimatic conditions and carbon accumulation rates in two maritime peatlands located on the eastern tip of Anticosti Island. Due to Anticosti Island's central position in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, these bogs have developed under the influence of the Gulf's surface conditions, interacting with atmospheric circulation during the Holocene. Peatlands are invaluable paleoenvironmental archives, offering numerous prospects for research into maritime climate.

A peat core was collected from the deepest section of each bog to reconstruct the Holocene hydroclimatic conditions of the initiation and development of two maritime bogs located in the eastern part of Anticosti Island. More specifically, the project aims to :

1. Reconstructing ecological and hydrological change over time from assemblages of plant macroremains and thecamoebiens ;
2. Quantifying changes in peat and carbon accumulation rates during peatland development;
3. Characterize the relationship between regional climatic variability throughout the Holocene and the development of the two maritime peatlands.