Scientific communication
The Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA-AK)
Walker, Donald A.; Breen, Amy L.; Druckenmiller, Lisa A.; Wirth, Lisa W.; Fisher, Will; Raynolds, Martha K.; Šibík, Jozef; Walker, Marilyn D.; Hennekens, Stephan; Boggs, Keith; Boucher, Tina; Buchhorn, Marcel; Bültmann, Helga; Cooper, David J.; Daniëls, Fred J.A; Davidson, Scott J.; Ebersole, James J.; Elmendorf, Sara C.; Epstein, Howard E.; Gould, William A.; Hollister, Robert D.; Iversen, Colleen M.; Jorgenson, M. Torre; Kade, Anja; Lee, Michael T.; MacKenzie, William H.; Peet, Robert K.; Peirce, Jana L.; Schickhoff, Udo; Sloan, Victoria L.; Talbot, Stephen S.; Tweedie, Craig E.; Villarreal, Sandra; Webber, Patrick J.; Zona, Donatella
Phytocoenologia Band 46 Heft 2 (2016), p. 221 - 229
published: Sep 1, 2016
published online: Oct 10, 2016
Open Access (paper may be downloaded free of charge)
Abstract
The Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA-AK, GIVD-ID: NA-US-014) is a free, publically available database archive of vegetation-plot data from the Arctic tundra region of northern Alaska. The archive currently contains 24 datasets with 3,026 non-overlapping plots. Of these, 74% have geolocation data with 25-m or better precision. Species cover data and header data are stored in a Turboveg database. A standardized Pan Arctic Species List provides a consistent nomenclature for vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens in the archive. A web-based online Alaska Arctic Geoecological Atlas (AGA-AK) allows viewing and downloading the species data in a variety of formats, and provides access to a wide variety of ancillary data. We conducted a preliminary cluster analysis of the first 16 datasets (1,613 plots) to examine how the spectrum of derived clusters is related to the suite of datasets, habitat types, and environmental gradients. We present the contents of the archive, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and provide three supplementary files that include the data dictionary, a list of habitat types, an overview of the datasets, and details of the cluster analysis.
Keywords
turboveg • database • vegetation classification • circumpolar • cluster analysis • tundra