The Tundra Phenology Database

• Main Authors: Prevéy, Janet, Elmendorf, Sarah Claire, Natali, Susan, Oberbauer, Steven, Panchen, Zoe, Petraglia, Alessandro, Post, Eric, Rixen, Christian, Rodenhizer, Heidi, Rumpf, Sabine, Schmidt, Niels Martin, Schuur, Ted, Semenchuk, Philipp, Smith, Jane Griffin, Suding, Katharine, Totland, Ørjan, Troxler, Tiffany, Wahren, Henrik, Welker, Jeffrey, Wipf, Sonja, Yang, Yue
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network 2021
• Subjects: Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.21963/13215; https://www.polardata.ca/pdcsearch?doi_id=13215

The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) is a network of researchers examining the impacts of warming on tundra ecosystems. Currently, research teams at sites throughout the world carry out similar, multi-year coordinated experiments that allow them to examine vegetation change across the tundra biome. A common protocol was established to measure plant phenology across tundra sites, with the earliest observations from 1992. Today, this valuable collection of phenology measurements depicts the responses of plants at the colder extremes of our planet to experimental and ambient changes in temperature over the past decades. The purpose of this data release is to increase the visibility and use of these data in global analyses, and to invite phenology data contributions from underrepresented tundra locations. The information for phenology data providers is provided in the last two columns of the database, and we ask that data users invite the relevant phenology data providers as co-authors for any manuscripts that make use of the data. : Observations of changes in phenology have provided some of the strongest signals of the effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. Here we make publicly available a tundra phenology database containing over 150,000 phenology observations of 278 plant species taken at 28 tundra locations for periods of 1 to 26 years. Plant phenology observations were collected either once weekly, twice weekly, or daily, depending on the study area. The five phenophases, or phenological events, that are included in the database are: green-up of leaves (green), first flowering date (flower), last flowering date (flowerend), seed maturation (seedmat), and leaf senescence (senesce). This is planned to be a 'living database', with additional phenology observations from tundra locations added at regular intervals as new data are collected and new study areas are established.