(Table 1) Effects of experimental warming on plant cover and diversity indices in an evergreen shrub at Alexandra Fiord

DOI
  1. Identifying plant communities that are resistant to climate change will be critical for developing accurate, wide-scale vegetation change predictions. Most northern plant communities, especially tundra, have shown strong responses to experimental and observed warming.2. Experimental warming is a key tool for understanding vegetation responses to climate change. We used open-top chambers to passively warm an evergreen-shrub heath by 1.0-1.3 °C for 15 years at Alexandra Fiord, Nunavut, Canada (79 °N). In 1996, 2000 and 2007, we measured height, plant composition and abundance with a point-intercept method.3. Experimental warming did not strongly affect vascular plant cover, canopy height or species diversity, but it did increase bryophyte cover by 6.3% and decrease lichen cover by 3.5%. Temporal changes in plant cover were more frequent and of greater magnitude than changes due to experimental warming.4. Synthesis. This evergreen-shrub heath continues to exhibit community-level resistance to long-term experimental warming, in contrast to most Arctic plant communities. Our findings support the view that only substantial climatic changes will alter unproductive ecosystems.

Data extracted in the frame of a joint ICSTI/PANGAEA IPY effort, see http://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.150150

Supplement to: Hudson, James M G; Henry, Gregory HR (2010): High Arctic plant community resists 15 years of experimental warming. Journal of Ecology, 98(5), 1035-1041

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.811359
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2010.01690.x
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.811359
Provenance
Creator Hudson, James M G; Henry, Gregory HR
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2010
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Supplementary Dataset; Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 146 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-75.917 LON, 78.883 LAT); Ellesmere Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago
Temporal Coverage Begin 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z