Alpine Vegetation Trends in Glacier National Park, Montana 2019

This dataset is focused on alpine plant species presence/absence, species turnover, and trends in species abundance on four mountain summits in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. This dataset consists of data from 2019, the fourth survey of the project which is on a five year survey schedule. Two summit sites were established in 2003 on Dancing Lady and Bison Mountain, east of the continental divide. Two additional summit sites were established in 2004 on Pitamakin and Mt. Seward, also east of the continental divide. This multi-summit approach to monitoring alpine plant species follows the protocols of the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA) that were initiated by the University of Vienna in 2000 and which have been refined and revised since then. GLORIA summit sites now exist throughout the world. Current protocols are available at: https://gloria.ac.at/downloads/manual. Plant surveys took place every five years during peak alpine plant growing season in late July and August on all aspects of the summits using a combination of area surveys and meter plots. Temperature loggers were buried at 10cm depth on each aspect and replaced every 3-5 years. In 2019 a total of 145 species were recorded for the four summit sites. This data has not yet been analyzed in comparison to the previous datasets. Additional surveys are planned for the summer of 2024.