Data from: Sixty-year legacy of human impacts on a high Arctic ecosystem ...

• Main Authors: Becker, Michael S., Pollard, Wayne H.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2016
• Subjects: ground temperature; Permafrost; polar desert; thermokarst; Infrastructure; ice wedges; Arctic; Canada; Ellesmere Island; Nunavut; Pollard; Ice; permafrost; Thermokarst; wedge*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t0k5k; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.t0k5k

The high Arctic is the world's fasting warming biome, allowing access to sections of previously inaccessible land for resource extraction. Starting in 2011, exploration of one of the Earth's largest undeveloped coal seams was initiated in a relatively pristine, polar desert environment in the Canadian high Arctic. Due to the relative lack of historic anthropogenic disturbance, significant gaps in knowledge exist on how the landscape will be impacted by development. At an abandoned airstrip located near the area of current exploration, we used a disturbance case–control approach to evaluate the long-term ecological consequences of high Arctic infrastructure disturbance to vegetation and sensitive, ice-rich permafrost. We quantified: (i) long-term effects on vegetation diversity, soil nutrients, and abiotic ground conditions and (ii) the alteration of the ground surface topography and legacy of subsurface thermal changes. We found that in over sixty years since abandonment, the disturbed landscape has not ... : Airfield Vegetation Community CompositionPlot-level community composition data of 80 plots of vascular vegetation data from a site of anthropogenic disturbance on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Please refer to Becker & Pollard, 2015 for more information.Airfield_Community_Composition.csvAirfield Plot MetadataCorresponding metadata of plot environmental variables matching 80 plots of vascular vegetation data from a site of anthropogenic disturbance on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Please refer to Becker & Pollard, 2015 for more information.Airfield_Plot_Metadata.csv ...