Circumpolar Arctic vegetation: a hierarchic review and roadmap toward an internationally consistent approach to survey, archive and classify tundra plot data
Satellite-derived remote-sensing products are providing a modern circumpolar perspective of Arctic vegetation and its changes, but this new view is dependent on a long heritage of ground-based observations in the Arctic. Several products of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna are key to our current understanding. We review aspects of the PanArctic Flora, the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map, the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, and the Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) as they relate to efforts to describe and map the vegetation, plant biomass, and biodiversity of the Arctic at circumpolar, regional, landscape and plot scales. Cornerstones for all these tools are ground-based plant-species and plant-community surveys. The AVA is in progress and will store plot-based vegetation observations in a public-accessible database for vegetation classification, modeling, diversity studies, and other applications. We present the current status of the Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA-AK), as a regional example for the panarctic archive, and with a roadmap for a coordinated international approach to survey, archive and classify Arctic vegetation. We note the need for more consistent standards of plot-based observations, and make several recommendations to improve the linkage between plot-based observations biodiversity studies and satellite-based observations of Arctic vegetation.
Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA;Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Plants, Münster University, Germany;Tromsø Museum, UiT, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway;Department of Amospheric Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA;International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA;Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA;Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Plants, Münster University, Germany;Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA;Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, UK;Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT—The Arctic University, Norway;Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, USA;US Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, USA;Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, UiT—The Arctic University, Norway;Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Denmark;Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA;Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic;US Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage, AK, USA;Department of Plant Biology (Emeritus), Michigan State University, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Recommended Citation:
D A Walker,F J A Daniëls,I Alsos,et al. Circumpolar Arctic vegetation: a hierarchic review and roadmap toward an internationally consistent approach to survey, archive and classify tundra plot data[J]. Environmental Research Letters,2016-01-01,11(5)