Data from: Spatial variation and linkages of soil and vegetation in the Siberian Arctic tundra – coupling field observations with remote sensing data ...

• Main Authors: Mikola, Juha, Virtanen, Tarmo, Linkosalmi, Maiju, Vähä, Emmi, Nyman, Johanna, Postanogova, Olga, Räsänen, Aleksi, Kotze, D. Johan, Laurila, Tuomas, Juutinen, Sari, Kondratyev, Vladimir, Aurela, Mika
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2019
• Subjects: moss; Eriophorum; Satellite image; Spatial extrapolation; Permafrost; Vascular plant; spatial variation; Sphagnum; Land cover type; Salix; Betula nana; LAI; Ecosystem carbon exchange; Carex; soil temperature; reflectance; Arctic; Tiksi; Climate change; permafrost; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8382j4r; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.8382j4r

Arctic tundra ecosystems will play a key role in future climate change due to intensifying permafrost thawing, plant growth and ecosystem carbon exchange, but monitoring these changes may be challenging due to the heterogeneity of Arctic landscapes. We examined spatial variation and linkages of soil and plant attributes in a site of Siberian Arctic tundra in Tiksi, northeast Russia, and evaluated possibilities to capture this variation by remote sensing for the benefit of carbon exchange measurements and landscape extrapolation. We distinguished nine land cover types (LCTs) and to characterize them, sampled 92 study plots for plant and soil attributes in 2014. Moreover, to test if variation in plant and soil attributes can be detected using remote sensing, we produced a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and topographical parameters for each study plot using three very high spatial resolution multispectral satellite images. We found that soils ranged from mineral soils in bare soil and lichen ... : Plant, soil and remote sensing attributes of a Siberian Arctic sitePlant and soil data of study plots were collected in the field in summer 2014. NDVI and topographical attributes were later extracted from three satellite images, portraying the field site and vegetation in three different years at 180, 220 and 750 DD (growing degree days with 0 C threshold). Plant species presence (1 in data) and absence (0 in data) in study plots is available for dicotyledonous vascular plants. Land cover types are based on ground-based visual judgement.Mikola et al. 2018_Biogeosciences.xlsx ...