Exploration practices for oil sands developments in the boreal forest of western Canada create a network of thousands of kilometers of linear features, particularly seismic lines that dissect these forests posing significant environmental challenges. As wildfire is one of the prevalent stand‐replacing natural disturbances in the Canadian boreal forest, it is an important driver of environmental change and stand development that may contribute to the mitigation of such linear industrial footprint. Here, we evaluate the short‐term cumulative (also known as combined) effects of seismic lines and wildfire on biodiversity and site conditions. One year after the Horse River (Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada) fire event in the spring of 2016, we compared dissected and undisturbed forests in burned and unburned boreal peatlands, assessing changes in overall stand structure and the responses of a variety of organisms. Soil moisture was significantly higher on seismic lines than in the adjacent forest, suggesting why most of the study sites within the fire perimeter showed little evidence of burning at the line in relation to the adjacent forest. Low fire severity on seismic lines seemed an important driver of local species diversity for ants, beetles, spiders, and plants in disturbed peatlands, resulting in similar species composition on seismic lines both within and outside the burned area, but different assemblages in burned and unburned adjacent forests. Our results suggest that fire did not erase seismic lines; rather, wildfire might increase the influence of this footprint on the recovering adjacent forest. Longer‐term monitoring will be necessary to understand how boreal treed peatlands respond to the cumulative effect of wildfire and linear disturbances.

中文翻译：

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北方泥炭地野火的短期影响：火会减轻油气​​勘探的线性足迹吗？

加拿大西部的北方森林中油砂开发的勘探实践建立了一个由数千公里的线性特征组成的网络，尤其是将这些森林解剖的地震线构成了重大环境挑战。由于野火是加拿大北方森林普遍取代林分的自然干扰之一，因此它是环境变化和林分发展的重要驱动力，可能有助于减轻此类线性工业足迹。在这里，我们评估地震线和野火对生物多样性和场地条件的短期累积（也称为综合）影响。在2016年春季马河（加拿大艾伯塔省麦克默里堡）发生火灾的一年后，我们比较了在燃烧过的和未燃烧过的北方泥炭地中被解剖和未受干扰的森林，评估总体林分结构的变化以及各种生物体的反应。地震线路上的土壤湿度明显高于邻近森林，这表明为什么在火灾范围内的大多数研究地点都没有证据表明该线路相对于邻近森林有燃烧的迹象。地震线上的低烈度似乎是受干扰的泥炭地中蚂蚁，甲虫，蜘蛛和植物局部物种多样性的重要驱动力，导致在燃烧区域内外的地震线上类似的物种组成，但在燃烧和未燃烧的种群中存在不同的组合邻近的森林。我们的结果表明，大火并没有消除地震线。相反，野火可能会增加此足迹对恢复中的邻近森林的影响。