From Peatlands to Boreal Lakes: Fill-and-Spill Hydrology and Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) Transport in the Headwaters of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The boreal peatlands of the northern Canadian Shield in Ontario, Canada, serve as headwater systems for the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL), the third-largest peatland complex globally and a critical carbon reservoir. This landscape—shaped by a heterogeneous mix of exposed bedrock outcrops and low-conductivity glacio-marine sediments—comprises a mosaic of treed peatlands, post-glacial lakes, and river systems, which play a key role in regulating water and carbon fluxes to downstream ecosystems. Despite their importance, the hydrological connectivity of these peatlands and their role in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) transport remain poorly understood, especially in the context of changing hydrological conditions.This study investigates the hydrological and DOC dynamics along two 400 m flowpaths that originate in peatlands and terminate at Tomorrow Lake (49°55'2"N, 80°41'59"W), a 2.5 km² post-glacial lake draining into the North French River watershed. In June 2024, five monitoring nests were installed along each transect, equipped with porewater sippers (30 and 50 cm below ground surface) and screened pipes at depths of 75, 100, 150, and 200 cm. Continuous water table data were logged, and DOC concentrations were measured during June, August, and September 2024. A meteorological station, installed in August, captured local hydrological inputs and outputs, providing a detailed view of seasonal variability.Results reveal a complex “fill-and-spill” hydrological connectivity at the flowpath outlets, driven by variations in topography. In the steeper transect, water tables dropped sharply from 150 cm bgs at the lake interface, entering the underlying low-conductivity mineral soil. This suggests slow, diffuse subsurface flow as the dominant transport mechanism. Average DOC concentrations correspondingly declined from 33 mg/L in the peatland center to 19 mg/L at the lake edge, aligning closely with average lake outflow concentrations (16 mg/L) and indicating potential carbon filtration through the mineral soil. By contrast, in the flatter transect, water tables remained elevated near the lake interface (
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".