I grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on the central prairies of North America and spent a lot of my summers in the boreal forests of Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. The bryophytes and lichens around me were inspiring and fascinating, but my love of canoe tripping brought me to limnology and phycology during my BSc in Biology at the University of Winnipeg (1998). However, after spending a summer counting algal cells I decided I wanted to work on something a bit bigger! For my MSc I decided I would like to move to the ocean, and I found a home in Dr Kate Frego’s lab at University of New Brunswick Saint John working on the impact of forest harvest on bryophytes (2001). Collecting and identifying bryophytes I quickly fell in love with their beautiful and complex morphology and ecology. I went on to do a PhD on bryophytes in paludifying boreal forests in northwestern Québec, Canada (2006) with Yves Bergeron, not a bryologist but a renowned landscape ecologist in the boreal who let me do what I wanted – I don’t think I have been quite so free since!
I’ve stayed put since, and am now an associate professor in plant ecology at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (since 2014), working on the ecology of species and communities of bryophytes (and sometimes lichens) in the boreal and temperate regions of Canada. I am interested both in how ecosystems influence bryophytes (natural and anthropogenic disturbances) but also how bryophytes influence ecosystems, notably through the characteristics of the large mats that they form in many ecosystems. Another research branch has developed over the last few years via my work with the Committee on the status of endangered wildlife in Canada, moss and lichen subcommittee, I have developed a better understanding of what we don’t know about boreal bryophyte distribution patterns in Canada, and am using both landscape ecology approaches and remote sensing based modelling to try and fill in some of these gaps. Thanks to the hard work of the over 30 graduate students I have supervised we have been able to make some significant advances. In addition to my work on plant ecology, I have been active in promoting Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in science, particularly forest ecology and botany.
http://www.cef-cfr.ca/index.php?n=Membres.NicoleFenton?userlang=en
Selected publications (* indicates students)
Fenton, N.J., Frego, K., Sims, M. 2003. Changes in forest floor bryophyte (moss and liverwort) community four years after forest harvest. Canadian Journal of Botany. 81: 714-731.
Fenton, N.J., Lecomte, N., Légaré, S., Bergeron, Y. 2005. Paludification in black spruce (Picea mariana) forests of eastern Canada: potential factors and management implications. Forest Ecology and Management. 213: 151-159;
Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2006. Sphagnum spore availability in boreal forests. The Bryologist. 109: 173-181;
Fenton, N.J., Frego, K. 2005. Bryophyte (moss and liverwort) conservation under remnant canopy in managed forests. Biological Conservation. 122: 417-430;
Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2006. Facilitative succession in a boreal bryophyte community driven by changes in available moisture and light. Journal of Vegetation Science. 17: 65-76;
Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2007. Sphagnum community change after partial harvest in black spruce boreal forests. Forest Ecology and Management. 242: 24-33;
Fenton, N.J., Beland, C., DeBlois, S., Bergeron, Y. 2007. Sphagnum establishment and expansion in black spruce (Picea mariana) boreal forests. Canadian Journal of Botany. 85: 43-50;
Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y., Paré, D. 2010. Decomposition rates of bryophytes in managed boreal forests: influence of bryophyte species and forest harvesting. Plant and Soil. 336: 499-508;
Arseneault, J.*, Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2012. Effects of variable canopy retention harvest on epixylic bryophyte in boreal black spruce – feathermoss forests of northwestern Quebec. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 42: 1467-1476;
Bergeron, Y., Fenton, N.J. 2012. Boreal forests of eastern Canada revisited old growth; non fire disturbances, forest succession and biodiversity. Botany. 90: 509-523;
Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2013. Stochastic processes dominate during boreal bryophyte community assembly. Ecology 94(9): 1993-2006;
Fenton, N.J., Imbeau, L., Work, T., et al. 2013. Lessons learned from 12 years of ecological research on partial cuts in black spruce forests of north-western Québec. The Forest Chronicle. 89(3): 350-359;
Laamrani, A.*, Valeria, O., Bergeron, Y., Fenton, N.J., Cheng, L.Z. 2015. Distinguishing and mapping permanent and reversible paludified landscapes in Canadian black spruce forests. Geoderma 237-238: 88-97;
Fenton, N.J., Hylander, K., Pharo, E. 2016. Chapter 17: Bryophytes in forest ecosystems: diversity, function and management. In Handbook of Forest Ecology, Editors: Kelvin Peh, Richard Corlett and Yves Bergeron.
Paquette, M.*, Boudreault, C., Fenton, N.J., et al. 2016. Bryophyte species assemblages in fire- and clear-cut origin boreal forests. Forest Ecology and Management. 359:99-108;
Barbé, M.*, Chavel, E.*, Fenton, N.J., et al. 2016. Dispersal of cryptogams is facilitated by small mammals in the boreal forest. Ecoscience 23 (3-4): 67-76;
Barbé, M.*, Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2016. So close and yet so far away: long distance dispersal more frequent than expected in bryophyte metacommunity re-assembly. Journal of Ecology. 104(6): 1707-1719;
Barbé, M.*, Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2017. Boreal bryophyte response to natural fire edge creation. Journal of Vegetation Science. 28(5): 915-927;
Barbé, M.*, Dubois, L.*, Faubert, J., Lavoie, M., Bergeron, Y., Fenton, N.J. 2017. Looking for a needle in a haystack: distribution range extension of 35 bryophyte species in the black spruce feather-moss forest of western Québec (Canada). Canadian Field Naturalist. 131(3): 258-269;
Moussaoui, L.*, Fenton, N.J., Lafleur, B., Leduc, A., Bergeron, Y. 2018. Changes in forest structure along a chronosequence in the black spruce boreal forest: Identifying structures to be reproduced through silvicultural practices. Ecological Indicators. 97: 88-99;
Boudreault, C.*, Paquette, M.*, Fenton, N.J., Pothier, D., Bergeron, Y. 2018. Changes in bryophytes assemblages along a chronosequence in eastern boreal forest of Québec. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 48(7): 821-834;
Pacé, M.*, Fenton, N.J., Paré, D., Bergeron, Y. 2018. Differential effects of feather and Sphagnum spp. mosses on black spruce germination and growth. Forest Ecology and Management. 415-416: 10-18;
Martin, M.*, Morin, H., Fenton, N.J. 2018. Homogeneous and steady-state old-growth boreal forests? A conceptual model of their dynamics and structural diversity in eastern Canada. Forest Ecology and Management. 422: 125-136;
Barbé, M.*, Bouchard, M., Fenton, N.J. 2020. Examining boreal forest resilience to temperature variability using bryophytes: forest type matters. Ecosphere. 11: e03232; DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3232
Cerrejon, C.*, Valeria, O., Mansuy, N., Barbé, M.*, Fenton, N.J. 2020. Predictive mapping of bryophyte richness patterns in boreal Forests using species distribution models and remote sensing data. Ecological Indicators: 119: 106826; .ecolind.2020.106826 (Chaire CRSNG)
Pacé, M.*, Paré, D., Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. 2020. Effects of lichen, Sphagnum spp. and feather moss leachates on jack pine and black spruce seedling growth. Plant and Soil. 452: 441-455; DOI: 10.1007/s11104-020-04587-0
Crispo, M., Jean, M.*, Fenton, N.J., Leduc, A., Bergeron, Y. 2021. Factors explaining the composition and diversity of vascular plant understories along a transcontinental gradient in the Canadian boreal forest. Journal of Vegetation Science. DOI : 10.1111/jvs.13058
Boisvert, R.*, Yin, X.*, Fenton, N.J. 2021. Offsite effects of mining on the frequency and abundance of five understorey plant species in western Québec (Canada). Botany: 99(871). DOI: 10.1139/cjb-2020-0158;
Cerrejon, C.*, Valeria, O, Caners, R., Marchand, P., Fenton, N.J. 2021. No place to hide: Rare plant detection through remote sensing. Diversity and Distributions. 27:948-961.
Opoku-Nyame, J.*, Leduc, A., Fenton, N.J. 2021. Bryophyte conservation in managed boreal landscapes: Fourteen-year impacts of partial cuts on epixylic bryophytes. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change: 4 DOI: 10.3389/ffgc.2021.674887Jean, M.*, Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y., Nilsson, M.C. 2021. Sphagnum and feather moss associated N2-fixation increases along a 724-year chronosequence in eastern boreal Canada. Plant Ecology: 222(20) DOI: 10.1007/s11258-021-01157-x
Yin, X. B.*, Lamara, M., Liyanage, N. S.*, Zhu, R. L., Fenton, N. J. 2021. Riccardia vitrea (Aneuraceae), a liverwort species new to China and North America. Herzogia, 34(2), 279-285. h.ttps://doi.org/10.13158/heia.34.2.2021.279.
Bourgouin, M.*, Valeria, O., Fenton, N.J. 2022. Predictive mapping of bryophyte diversity associated with mature forests using LiDAR-derived indices in a strongly managed landscape. Ecological Indicators. 136: 108585.
Patino, J., Bisang, I., Goffinet, B., Hedenas, L., McDaniel, S., Pressel, S., Stech, M., Ah-Peng, C., Bergamini, A., Caners, R.T., Cargill, C.D., Cronberg, N., Duckett, J., Eppley, S., Fenton, N.J., Fisher, K., Gonzalez-Mancebo, J., Hasebe, M., Heinrichs, J., Hylander, K., Ignatov, M.S., Martinez-Abaigar, J., Medina, M.G., Medina, R., Quandt, D., Rensing, S.A., Renzaglia, K., Renner, M. Ros, R.M., Schafer-Verwimp, A., Villarreal, J.C., Vanderpoorten, A. 2022. Unveiling the nature of a miniature world: a horizon scan of fundamental questions in bryology. Journal of Bryology. 44(1): 1-34.
Yin, X.*, Martineau, C., Fenton, N.J. 2022. Synergistic effects in mine offsite landscapes: Predicted ecosystem shifts could exacerbate mining effects on bryophyte community structure. Ecological Indicators. 144: 109555.