Abiotic Stresses to Vegetation Re-establishment in a Cutover Bog Contaminated with Seawater

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is the true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. Abstract Part of a cutover bog in Pokesudie Island, New Brunswick, Canada was contaminated with seawater and was still largely devoid of vegetation 5 years after the event and was consequently chosen for study. The study area consisted of rectangular fields with cambered surface that sloped down (2%) to the drainage ditches on both sides. Across this slope zones were created: Up-, Mid-and Low-areas on either side of the centerline of fields. Two field experiments were conducted to determine abiotic stresses to plant re-establishment in terms of hydrology and peat characteristics along this cambered surface. The general objective was to identify microsites or zones that could be suitable to the introduction of wetland halophytes Juncus balticus Willd. and Spartina pectinata Link obtained from nearby salt marshes. In the first experiment, cylindrical J. balticus sods were transplanted into the Up-and Low-areas, at 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 d of incubation (in May 2005) with measurements made on the Outer and Inner annular sod sections, replicated over 4 blocks. Moisture (% dry weight basis (dwb)) reached maximum values 1 day after transplantation, 84±0.05 for Outer and 103±0.07 for Inner sod section. Salinity (dS m-1) in sods due to ingress of sodium (Na +) and chloride (Cl-) reached values of the surrounding peat 3 days after transplantation, 3.52±1.06 for Inner sod section and 4.11±0.99 for Outer sod section in Up-areas, and 1.76±0.24 for Inner sod section and 2.57±0.28 for Outer sod section in Low-areas. Maximum decrease in pH was at 5 days after transplantation, in Outer sod section in the Up-areas (from 5.89 to 4.88±0.14) which was much higher than the pH range of 3-4 of the surrounding peat. This was due to the buffering capacity of calcium (Ca 2+) and magnesium (Mg 2+) in sods which did not change in concentration after 20 days of incubation. Therefore, Inner sod sections were less affected by the surrounding peat compared to the Outer sod sections, suggesting that a larger sod volume may alleviate stressful conditions for a longer time at transplantation and consequently allow greater time for adaptation. iv In the second experiment, J. balticus and S. pectinata were transplanted …