Plant density measurements in International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) and Arctic System Science Program (ARCSS) plots at Utqiaġvik and Atqasuk, Alaska

Arctic ecosystems are changing in response to arctic warming, which is proceeding more than twice as fast as the global average. The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) was established in the early 1990s to understand the effects of warming and environmental variability on tundra vegetation properties and ecosystem function. The ITEX program has been extremely valuable for detection of changes in tundra plant and ecosystem responses to experimental warming and to background climate change across sites that span the major ecosystems of the Arctic. These files contain data representing the plant cover and counts of individuals in 5, 10” by 10” square subplots at Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow) and Atqasuk in a text comma delimited format. The 5 subplots were established in existing plots. These include 96 ITEX plots and a subset of 30 ARCSS grid plots in Utqiaġvik and 96 ITEX plots and a subset of 30 ARCSS grid plots in Atqasuk. The data presented were collected from 2011-2019 at both Utqiaġvik and Atqasuk, and during 2021 at Utqiaġvik only.

北极生态系统正随北极变暖发生改变，而北极变暖的速率是全球平均水平的两倍以上。国际冻原实验（International Tundra Experiment，ITEX）于20世纪90年代初设立，旨在探究增温与环境波动对冻原植被特征及生态系统功能的影响。该项目在横跨北极主要生态系统的多站点中，针对冻原植物与生态系统对实验增温及背景气候变化的响应变化开展监测，具有极高的科研价值。本数据集包含乌特恰维克（Utqiaġvik，原称巴罗Barrow）与阿特萨苏克（Atqasuk）两地的植物盖度与植株个体数量数据，数据采集自5个10英寸×10英寸的方形小样地，以逗号分隔的文本格式存储。该5个小样地均设于已有的样地内：乌特恰维克站点包含96个ITEX样地与30个ARCSS网格样地子集，阿特萨苏克站点同样包含96个ITEX样地与30个ARCSS网格样地子集。本次发布的数据采集时段为：乌特恰维克与阿特萨苏克两地均为2011年至2019年，乌特恰维克额外包含2021年的采集数据。