Rove beetle (Staphylinidae) assemblages following the cumulative effect of wildfire and linear footprint in Boreal treed peatlands of northeastern Alberta (Canada)

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 al..., 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 (Picea mariana (Miller) Britton, Sterns & Poggenburgh) in the overstory, and sphagnum (Sphagnum L. spp.), bog haircap (Polytrichum stictum Brid.), red-stemmed feathermoss (Pleurozium schreberi (Brid.) Mitt.), sedges (Carex L. spp.), horsetails (Equisetum L. spp.), three-leaved false Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum trifolium (L.) Sloboda), Labrador tea (Rhododendrum greoenlandicum (Oeder) Kron & Jud), cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus L.), mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.), ..., 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).