Above-ground biomass of graminoid plants inside and outside goose grazing exclosures installed on the wetlands of Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada

Primary production is at the base of all terrestrial food webs. In terrestrial ecosystem, primary production is measured by sampling the vegetation. We are interested in two aspects of the vegetation. First, standing crop, which can be defined as the amount of live aboveground biomass present at a given time (usually at the peak of the growing season). Second, annual primary production, which is the amount of vegetation biomass that has been produced over the course of a growing season.

We sample the production of graminoid plants (sedges and grasses) and measure the impact of goose grazing in wetlands at three sites on Bylot Island: Qarlikturvik Valley (since 1990), Camp 2 (since 1998) and Pointe Dufour (1998 to 2008). At each site, 12 new exclosures (1 m × 1 m × 50 cm high) made of chicken wire are installed in late June. At the end of the growing season in mid-August, we sample plant biomass by removing 20 × 20 cm plots in ungrazed and grazed areas (i.e. inside and outside exclosures). All live above-ground biomass is cut, sorted out by species and weighed dry.

This archive contains the aboveground grazed and ungrazed biomass data of all exclosures sampled in the wetlands of Bylot Island since 1990 according to the most abundant functional plant species: Eriophorum, grasses and Carex. The dataset also included the GPS locations of sampling sites.