Plant species composition in black sand extended growing season experiment, 2018 - ongoing.

As a result of climate change, the Rocky Mountain Front Range is experiencing warmer summers and earlier snowmelt. Due to the importance of snow for regulating soil temperature, growing season length, and available moisture in alpine ecosystems, even small shifts in the snow-free period could have large impacts. The focus of the Black Sand Extended Growing Season Length Experiment is to examine how terrain-related differences in climate exposure influence the way alpine habitats respond to climate change via earlier snowmelt. To simulate how climate exposure may affect plant communities, NWT LTER researchers established 5 experimental sites each containing a pair 10 x 40m rectangular plots. These sites include north and south facing aspects, subalpine and alpine tundra meadows in a range of hydrological conditions (e.g. dry meadows, moist meadows, wet meadows). We accelerated snowmelt in one plot of each block by adding chemically inert black sand, while keeping the second plot as an unmanipulated control; black sand was added to these plots after snow had naturally melted. This dataset includes measurements of plant species composition.受气候变化影响，落基山脉前缘（Rocky Mountain Front Range）正经历夏季气温升高与融雪提前的变化。由于积雪在高山生态系统中对土壤温度、生长季长度及可利用水分均具有关键调控作用，无雪期的微小变动即可引发显著影响。本黑沙延长生长季实验（Black Sand Extended Growing Season Length Experiment）的核心研究目标，是探究气候暴露度的地形差异如何通过融雪提前的途径，影响高山生境对气候变化的响应。为模拟气候暴露度对植物群落的影响，西北领地长期生态研究网络（NWT LTER）的研究人员设置了5个实验样地，每个样地内包含一对10×40米的矩形样方。这些样地涵盖了不同水文条件下的亚高山与高山苔原草甸，以及南北朝向的坡向，包括干旱草甸、湿润草甸与湿生草甸等类型。研究人员在每个区组的其中一个样方中施加化学惰性黑沙以加速融雪，另一个样方则作为未受人为干扰的对照样方；需说明的是，黑沙的施加是在自然融雪完成后进行的。本数据集包含植物物种组成的相关测量数据。