Environmental and plant community composition and functional trait data across peatlands of the Forest Dynamics Plot at Scotty Creek, NT.

• Main Authors: Standen, Katherine M., Baltzer, Jennifer L.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholars Portal Dataverse 2021
• Subjects: Scotty Creek; Active layer thickness; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5683/sp2/r4ftpw; https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/citation?persistentId=doi:10.5683/SP2/R4FTPW

This is the final dataset associated with the publication, “Permafrost condition determines plant community composition and community-level foliar functional traits in a boreal peatland”, submitted to Ecology and Evolution in April 2021. Included are three data files: the plant community composition dataset, the associated environmental variables dataset, and the plant functional trait dataset. Combined, the community composition and trait datasets were used to calculate the community-weighted means presented in the manuscript. These data explored how plant community composition and traits change across the Scotty Creek Forest Dynamics plot in response to environmental variation, including active layer thickness, organic layer thickness, and forest structure (i.e., canopy cover and tree basal area). To do this, we used a random stratified design to select ten 20 m by 20 m grid cells belonging to each of four aboveground tree biomass categories for a total of 40 grid cells across the Scotty Creek Forest Dynamics Plot. Within each grid cell, we randomly placed two 1 m by 1m quadrats to assess community composition of vascular plants via stem counts and measure canopy cover, active and organic layer thickness. These data were averaged to provide an estimate at the grid cell level. Basal area was calculated at the level of the grid cell. Plant functional traits were collected from 3 replicate individuals per species within 2-3 grid cells per aboveground tree biomass category. See Standen and Baltzer (2021) for more detailed methods.