Arctic Vegetation Archive - Alaska: North Slope ARCSS/LAII Flux Study.
The vegetation and soils at the North Slope Arctic System Science/Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions ARCSS/LAII Flux tower sites of F. S. Chapin and W. Oechel on the North Slope of Alaska were described by D. A. Walker, J. Bockheim, and C. L. Ping in 1995 and 1996. The primary source documents for this dataset are a collection of unpublished data for 29 plots by D. A. Walker (1995 -1996 unpublished). This project was funded by a National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs grant, OPP-9318530.
The 29 plots assessed occur within 6 broad habitat types including: 1) willow shrub vegetation of riparian areas and warm habitats (4 plots), 2) wet nonacidic tundra (2 plots), 3) bog vegetation, acidic mires including tussock tundra (11 plots), 4) ruderal community on loamy soil (1 plot), 5) dry to moist dwarf-shrub heath and low shrub vegetation on acidic nutrient poor substrates (3 plots), and 6) dry and mesic dwarf-shrub and graminoid vegetation on non-acidic substrates (8 plots).
Nineteen North Slope ARCSS/LAII flux tower sites were established in 1995. Sites were 100 x 100-meter square, marked in the field with air photo panels and 4-foot lath. At most of the flux tower sites, one or more plots, including plant species cover and environmental data, were recorded for the major vegetation types using the Braun-Blanquet approach. During this study, vegetation plots were not established at Tower Site 6 (Toolik Lake) or Site 12 (W. Oechel's flux-tower site at Betty Pingo) however growth form data transect growth form data is available. GPS coordinates were obtained for most of the plots. At each study site, one to four 1 x 1 x 1-meter soil pits were excavated, and detailed soil descriptions were made. In addition, six transects (four 50-meter and two 70-meter transects) that radiated from the center point of the plot were marked with wire flags spaced at 5-meter intervals. Plant species composition and vegetation height were sampled with a Buckner optical device along the six transects at 1-meter intervals.
Although the details of the vegetation studies were not published independently, the studies contributed to numerous papers published in a special section of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Kane and Reeburgh 1998) listed below.
Reference
Kane, D. L. and D. S. Reeburgh. 1998. Reprint from the Journal of Geophysical Research. American Geophysical Union, Washington D.C., 106:28,913-29,093 (ISBN: 0-87590-923-X) (http://www.geobotany.org/library/pubs/KaneDL1998_jgra_103_28913.pdf).
