Plant community composition in the ARCSS grid at Barrow and Atqasuk, Alaska, 2012-2016

• Main Author: Robert Hollister
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Arctic Data Center 2017
• Subjects: Barrow; Alaska
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.18739/A2XQ15

These files contain data representing the plant community composition and structure of ARCSS grid plots at Barrow and Atqasuk in a CSV format. The 2010 and 2013 data were collected on all plots that were not under water: 98 plots at Barrow and 88 plots at Atqasuk. The 2012, 2014 and 2015 data were only collected on a subset of 30 plots at Barrow and 30 plots at Atqasuk. The data were gathered by placing a Point Frame over each plot and recording the plant species at each location. The height of the 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. All hits and all the species that were encountered were recorded. 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.