Arctic Vegetation Archive - Alaska: Prudhoe Bay-ArcSEES Road Study.
Sampling of vegetation in the vicinity of Lake Colleen off the Spine Road at Prudhoe Bay was undertaken in 2014 as part of a study that focused on thermokarst in relationship to climate change and oilfield infrastructure. The objectives of the project were to study the effects of road dust and road-related flooding to topography, landforms, permafrost, soils and vegetation. This site was chosen in part due the comprehensive aerial photography available from 1949 (prior to road construction), up to the present. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, Arctic Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (NSF, ArcSEES) Program, Award No 1233854, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Land-Cover and Land-Use Change (NASA, LCLUC) Program, Award No. NNX14AD906.
Thirty-seven permanent vegetation and soil plots were established along two 200 meter transects in polygon centers and troughs at 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 meters from the road. Five additional vegetation plots were established outside the transects, 3 placed in heavy dust areas within 5 meters of the road on the south side, and two plots placed in relatively undisturbed mesic tundra at approximately 435 m along Transect 1. Plant communities were found to occur in 4 broad habitat types including: 1) Coastal salt marsh vegetation (1 plot), 2) Dry coastal beach and sand dune vegetation (1 plot), 3) Sedge grass and dwarf shrub mire and fen vegetation (19 plots), and 5) Dry and mesic dwarf-shrub and graminoid vegetation on non-acidic substrates (10 plots).
The 1 x 1 m plots were permanently marked with short wooden stakes. In the center of the plot is an 18 inch (46 cm) piece of 3/8 inch (1 cm) diameter steel rebar rod with a plot number engraved on the aluminum cap that marks the photo point. Additional data obtained from or adjacent to the plots include soil physical, chemical and descriptive data, soil and air temperatures, photographs and spectral data (leaf area index (LAI)).
Other data included in the unpublished report (Walker et al. 2015), but not contained in the Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive, includes information from sample points taken at 1 m intervals along two 200 meter transects such as thaw depth, water depth, plant canopy height, leaf area index (LAI), vegetation type (following Walker et al. 1980), microrelief feature, and at 5 m intervals thickness of dust.
References
Walker D. A., M. Buchhorn, M. Kanevskiy, G. V. Matyshak, M. K. Raynolds, Yuri L. Shur, and L. M. Wirth. 2015. Infrastructure-Thermokarst-Soil-Vegetation Interactions at Lake Colleen Site A, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Alaska Geobotany Center Data Report AGC 15-01, 92 pp. Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK.
