Windmill Islands bryophyte communities surveyed 2000-2013 (13 years)

East Antarctica has shown little evidence of warming to date with no coherent picture of how climate change is affecting vegetation. Here we show that vegetation in the Windmill Islands, East Antarctica is changing rapidly in response to a drying climate. This drying trend is evident across the region, demonstrated by changes in isotopic signatures measured along moss shoots, moss community composition and declining health. FILE: AAS_4046_NCC_Robinson.xlsxThis excel file provides a summary of bryophyte community data collected between 2000 and 2013. This dataset contains moss species composition, moss health, and moisture availability data for bryophyte-dominated communities in the Windmill Islands. Data was used to prepare figures in a manuscript for Nature Climate Change, including supplementary figures.8 worksheets:1. "Vocabulary" - provides a detailed description of methods, terms and abbreviations.2. "Quadrat" - provides a schematic of the quadrats used in this study, providing details of the size used for photos (25 x 25 cm), sample collection (20 x 20 cm) and grid interval details.3. "Fig2" - contains species composition data at two sites in the Windmill Islands (ASPA 135 and Robinson Ridge).4. "Fig3" - contains moss health cover data at two sites in the Windmill Islands (ASPA 135 and Robinson Ridge).5. "Fig4" - contains moisture availability trend data by species at six sites in the Windmill Islands (see "FigS1" sheet for map).6. "FigS1" - contains a map of sampling locations within the Windmill Islands, East Antarctica.7. "FigS2" - contains modelled ages for moss segments represented in "Fig4".8. "CWC" - contains spot measures of community water content taken at the time of sampling.Quadrat location data at two sites in the Windmill Islands (ASPA 135 and Robinson Ridge) are provided in metadata ID: AAS_4046_quadrat_locations (http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/metadata.cfm?entry_id=AAS_4046_quadrat_locations). And shown in two maps which are available via the AADC map catalogue: http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/mapcat/display_map.cfm?map_id=14450 http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/mapcat/display_map.cfm?map_id=14451 Three documents used in generating the modelled data represented in Fig. 2 are also included:FILE: Fig2_Model.txtThis text file is an R2OpenBUGS Bayesian model used by the R script (Fig2_script.txt) to estimate the change in relative abundance of three moss species and moribund (dead or dying) moss over time.FILE: Fig2_script.txtThis R script used in conjunction with the R2OpenBUGS Bayesian modelling package (see Fig2_Model.txt) models the relative abundance of each species in each quadrat and each year.FILE: Fig2_MossData.csvThis file contains the "Fig2" data from the Excel file AAS_4046_NCC_Robinson.xlsx in the correct format for use with the R2OpenBUGS Bayesian model and R script.