Testate amoebae as indicators of hydroseral change: an 8,500 year record from Mer Bleue Bog, eastern Ontario, Canada.

Testate amoebae have been used widely as a proxy of hydrological change in ombrotrophic peatlands, although their response to abiotic controls in other types of mire and fenland palaeo-environments is less well understood. This paper examines the response of testate amoebae to hydroseral and other environmental changes at Mer Bleue Bog, Ontario, Canada, a large ombrotrophic peatland, which evolved from a brackish-water embayment in the early Holocene. Sediments, plant macrofossils and diatoms examined from a 5.99 m core collected from the dome of the bog record six stages of development: i) a quiet, brackish-water riverine phase (prior to ca. 8500 cal BP); ii) a shallow lake (ca. 8500–8200 cal BP); iii) fen (8200–7600 cal BP); iv) transitional mire (7600–6900 cal BP); v) pioneer raised mire (6900–4450 cal BP); and vi) ombrotrophic bog (4450 cal BP-present).

Testate amoebae, notably small (<25 µm diameter) specimens of Centropyxis aculeata type, first appear in low abundances in sediments ascribed to the lacustrine phase. Diatoms from the same horizons record a shallowing in water depth, a decline in salinity and the development of emergent macrophytic vegetation, which may have provided favourable conditions for testate amoeba colonization. The testate amoeba communities of the inferred fen phase are more diverse and include centropyxids, cyclopyxids, Arcellidae and Hyalospheniidae, although the assemblages show some differences to those recently reported in modern European fen environments. The Fen–Bog Transition (FBT) is also dominated by C. aculeata type. The change in testate amoeba communities around this key transition is apparent in the results of Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA), and appears to reflect a latent nutrient gradient and a secondary moisture gradient. DCA analyses of plant macrofossil remains around the FBT show a similar trend, although the sensitivity of the two proxies to the inferred environmental changes differs. Comparisons with other regional mid-Holocene peatland records confirm the important influence of reduced effective precipitation on the testate amoeba communities during the initiation and development of Sphagnum-dominated, raised bog communities.

Mid to late Holocene hydrological change in continental eastern Canada: assessing regional trends from ombrotrophic peat records.

ABSTRACT High resolution records of mid-late Holocene hydro-climatic change are presented from Mer Bleue Bog, eastern Ontario. Past climatic changes in this region have previously been inferred from lake sediments, but rain-fed peatlands can offer additional insights into the spatial and temporal pattern of moisture availability. In this study, reconstructed water table depths are based on a testate amoeba-derived transfer function developed for the region and changes in bog surface wetness are compared with plant macrofossil and peat humification data.

RÉSUMÉ Nous présentons les enregistrements hautes résolutions des variations hydrologique durant la second moitié de l’Holocène pour les tourbières Mer Bleue á l’est de l'Ontario. Précédemment, les changements climatiques de cette région ont été dérivés à partir de prélèvement de sédiments de lac. Mais ils s’avèrent que les tourbières ombrotrophes offrir un éclairage supplémentaire sur les schémas de répartition spatiale et temporelle de la disponibilité de l'humidité. Dans cette étude, des profondeurs reconstruites de nappe phréatique sont basées sur un modèle de function de transfert d’amibes (Arcellinida) et des changements de l’humidité de surface de la tourbière sont comparés avec les macrofossils et au humification de tourbe dans une analyse multi-proxy.

Individual and Public-Program Adaptation: Coping with Heat Waves in Five Cities in Canada

Heat Alert and Response Systems (HARS) are currently undergoing testing and implementation in Canada. These programs seek to reduce the adverse health effects of heat waves on human health by issuing weather forecasts and warnings, informing individuals about possible protections from excessive heat, and providing such protections to vulnerable subpopulations and individuals at risk. For these programs to be designed effectively, it is important to know how individuals perceive the heat, what their experience with heat-related illness is, how they protect themselves from excessive heat, and how they acquire information about such protections. In September 2010, we conducted a survey of households in 5 cities in Canada to study these issues. At the time of the survey, these cities had not implemented heat outreach and response systems. The study results indicate that individuals' recollections of recent heat wave events were generally accurate. About 21% of the sample reported feeling unwell during the most recent heat spell, but these illnesses were generally minor. Only in 25 cases out of 243, these illnesses were confirmed or diagnosed by a health care professional. The rate at which our respondents reported heat-related illnesses was higher among those with cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, was higher among younger respondents and bore no relationship with the availability of air conditioning at home. Most of the respondents indicated that they would not dismiss themselves as

The Emergence of Rural Support Organisations in the UK and Canada: Providing Support for Patrilineal Family Farming

A certain type of rural support has emerged since agricultural restructuring of the 1980s. The article draws on research from the UK and Canada to suggest that support in both countries is derived from a patrilineal culture that still dominates family farming in both countries. Such a way of life, it is argued, involves the majority of farming men and women across generations working increasingly hard to ensure farm survival in order to facilitate an overall pattern of farm succession via the male or ‘patrilineal’ line. The article begins by providing a conceptualisation of patrilineal family farming drawing on insights from gender-informed work on farming identities, political-economy approaches from agricultural geography and the cultural turn in rural studies. This section will provide theoretical direction for discussion of the research findings. Here the article presents a discussion of the context to and typologies of organisations that emerged and five key findings derived from research conducted with members of the organisations in the UK and Canada. This assists in developing the argument that the emergent organisations are responding to and supporting this way of life and highlights some of the potential implications of doing so. The article has two aims. Firstly, it suggests that family farming in the UK and Canada continues to be predominantly structured by a way of life transmitted across generations which has the overall prerequisite of maintaining farm survival to enable patrilineal succession. Secondly, it suggests that a particular type of support for farming families emerged as a response to perceived threats to this way of life and provides evidence of its enduring nature.

Isolation basin records of late Quaternary sea-level change, central mainland British Columbia, Canada.

Isolation basin records from the Seymour-Belize Inlet Complex, a remote area of central mainland British Columbia, Canada are used to constrain post-glacial sea-level changes and provide a preliminary basis for testing geophysical model predictions of relative sea-level (RSL) change. Sedimentological and diatom data from three low-lying (<4 m elevation) basins record falling RSLs in late-glacial times and isolation from the sea by ~11,800–11,200 14C BP. A subsequent RSL rise during the early Holocene (~8000 14C BP) breached the 2.13 m sill of the lowest basin (Woods Lake), but the two more elevated basins (sill elevations of ~3.6 m) remained isolated. At ~2400 14C BP, RSL stood at 1.49 ± 0.34 m above present MTL. Falling RSLs in the late Holocene led to the final emergence of the Woods Lake basin by 1604 ± 36 14C BP. Model predictions generated using the ICE-5G model partnered with a small number of different Earth viscosity models generally show poor agreement with the observational data, indicating that the ice model and/or Earth models considered can be improved upon. The best data-model fits were achieved with relatively low values of upper mantle viscosity (5 × 1019 Pa s), which is consistent with previous modelling results from the region. The RSL data align more closely with observational records from the southeast of the region (eastern Vancouver Island, central Strait of Georgia), than the immediate north (Bella Bella–Bella Coola and Prince Rupert-Kitimat) and areas to the north-west (Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait), underlining the complexity of the regional response to glacio-isostatic recovery.