Realm: Terrestrial
Climate: Polar
Biome: Tundra
Central latitude: 70.879356
Central longitude: -157.005139
Duration: 6 years, from 1995 to 2008

9136 records

88 distinct species

Across the time series Liverwort lealiv is the most frequently occurring species

Citation(s):

Elmendorf, S.C. (2012) Global Tundra Vegetation Change –30 years of plant abundance data from unmanipulated and experimentally-warmed plots. Available at: http://www.polardata.ca, accessed 2017. CCIN reference number 10786.Elmendorf, S.C., Henry, G.H., Hollister, R.D., Björk, R.G., Bjorkman, A.D., Callaghan, T.V., Collier, L.S., Cooper, E.J., Cornelissen, J.H. & Day, T.A. (2012a) Global assessment of experimental climate warming on tundra vegetation: heterogeneity over space and time. Ecology letters, 15, 164–175.Elmendorf, S.C., Henry, G.H., Hollister, R.D., Björk, R.G., Boulanger-Lapointe, N., Cooper, E.J., Cornelissen, J.H., Day, T.A., Dorrepaal, E. & Elumeeva, T.G. (2012b) Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming. Nature Climate Change, 2, 453–457.Elmendorf, S.C., Henry, G.H., Hollister, R.D., Fosaa, A.M., Gould, W.A., Hermanutz, L., Hofgaard, A., Jónsdóttir, I.S., Jorgenson, J.C. & Lévesque, E. (2015) Experiment, monitoring, and gradient methods used to infer climate change effects on plant communities yield consistent patterns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112, 448–452.Hollister, R.D., May, J.L., Kremers, K.S., Tweedie, C.E., Oberbauer, S.F., Liebig, J.A., Botting, T.F., Barrett, R.T. & Gregory, J.L. (2015) Warming experiments elucidate the drivers of observed directional changes in tundra vegetation. Ecology and Evolution, 5, 1881–1895.

Methods

The data were gathered by placing a Point Frame over each plot and recording the top and bottom species at each location. The height of the top species was recorded relative to the ground at that location. The grids were spaced 7 cm apart and started at 3.5 cm from the edge of the square 70 cm frame. The top species was recorded at each location and the species at the ground surface was recorded if it was different from the top species. Occasionally it was difficult to distinguish which species was on the ground because there were several intertwined individuals, therefore preference was given to vascular plants, then lichens, and then mosses. Due to the limitations of field identification many species were lumped into larger taxa. Caveats The taxa provide are relatively robust, however even with the species lumping presented there may have been some difficulty with bryophytes and lichens. Prior to 2007 the sampling only involved the top and bottom hits. In 2007 and 2008 all hits were recorded. The height of each hit was estimated for the first sampling (1995-1997). GRASSX, POACEAE, UNIGRAM in BD site were changed to POAARC. GRASSX, POACEAE, UNIGRAM in BW site were changed to HIEPAU. BAREGROX were changed to BAREGRO. All XXXXXX identifiers were deleted.