Cover data of vascular plants, cryptogams, and ground substrates at Alert (Ellesmere Island, Nunavut)

Establishing new ecological baselines and initiating monitoring schemes on Arctic vegetation are critical to monitor, predict, and manage current and future impacts of climate change. We conducted systematic plot-based surveys in the polar desert surrounding Alert (Ellesmere Island, Nunavut) to provide a temporal snapshot of current species diversity and abundance, and to establish a georeferenced baseline with permanent field markers allowing robust re-surveying. A random stratified design was used, based on a habitat map of the study area (ca. 170 km2), to select the location of the vegetation plots. Each vegetation plot corresponded in five 1 m × 1 m quadrats, each located 5 m from a central point and at equal distance from one another. Following the point-intercept method of the International Tundra Experiment, we obtained in each quadrat an index of absolute cover for (1) vascular plants (identified to the species level), (2) cryptogams (identified as biological soil crust, cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), lichen, macrofungus, or moss), and (3) ground substrates (bare soil or rock). In 2018-2019, a total of 264 vegetation plots were surveyed (corresponding to 1,320 m2-quadrats) and among them, 50 vegetation plots (corresponding to 250 1-m2 quadrats) were permanently marked using two 20-cm metal nails hammered into the ground at opposite corners of the quadrats. Vascular plants are described in Desjardins et al. (2021a) whereas data collection methods and techniques are detailed in Desjardins et al. (2021a, 2021b).

Payette, Serge (Département de biologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Centre d’études nordiques, Université Laval, Québec, Canada)

Dubé, Martin (Chercheur indépendant, Saint-Jacques, Nouveau-Brunswick, Canada)

Sokoloff, Paul (Centre for Arctic Knowledge and Exploration, Canadian Museum of Nature, Québec, Canada)

St-Louis, Annie (Herbier Louis-Marie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada)

Lévesque, Esther (Département des sciences de l'environnement, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada)

Poulin, Marie-Pier (Département de biologie, chimie et géographie, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada; Chaire de recherche du Canada en biodiversité nordique, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada)

Legros, Jade (Département de biologie, chimie et géographie, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada; Chaire de recherche du Canada en biodiversité nordique, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada)

Sirois, Luc (Département de biologie, chimie et géographie, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Québec, Canada)

For their support, we thank the Canada Research Chairs Program, Department of National Defence of Canada, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), NSERC - Collaborative Research and Training Experience Program (CREATE) BIOS2, Network of Centers of Excellence of Canada ArcticNet, and Northern Scientific Training Program (Polar Knowledge Canada). We thank Gabrielle Roy, Michaël Fortier, Marie-Jeanne Rioux, Kevin Young, Jacob Caron Carrier, Francis Robitaille, Justine Drolet, Roxanne Gauvreau, and Marc Landry for their help during data collection. We thank Nathan Koutroulides, Station Warrant Officers Patrick Marceau and Dwayne Fox, as well as all the CFS station personnel for their support during field work.

Published

Version 1.0 (2018-2019) - Updated May 18, 2021

Dataset methodological details