Projects
This page outlines the primary project of the GVSU AEP. Visit the page of individual Members of the AEP for more material, including copies of posters and presentations.

Long-term Vegetation Monitoring
Primary Investigator: Robert D. Hollister

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Poster by Robert Slider

Brief Description:
This study seeks to quantify and improve the understanding of short-term and long-term responses of tundra vegetation to warming and document the changes in tundra vegetation occuring. This project provides data for improved prediction of the response of the tundra to climate change and real time data on the current state of the Arctic vegetation.

The project includes monitoring of permanent plots and a warming experiment, which has been in place in the Barrow since 1994 and at Atqasuk since 1996, that has provided new insights on flower and growth responses to temperature. The project examines the response of plants in perminanent plots over time. This research is a contribution to the US NSF Arctic Observatory Network (AON) Program and the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). ITEX sites are located at 37 locations in 13 countries including all the Arctic Nations. ITEX uses small, passive, clear-plastic, open-top chambers to warm the tundra. The chambers raise the daily temperature of the tundra plant canopy by 1.5 to 2.0 ºC which is in the range predicted by global climate simulations for the next 50 years.

Measures Collected at all Sites:
Plant Phenology and Growth
Species Composition and Abundance
Screen Height Temperature
Canopy Temperature
Soil Temperature
Precipitation
Canopy Relative Humidity
Soil Moisture
Light Intensity
Wind Speed

Research Design:
There are 24 chambers and 24 control plots at each of the four sites studied. The sites span gradients of temperature, from cooler Barrow to warmer Atqasuk, and moisture, from wet meadow to dry heath tundra types. The four sites are depicted in the figure below and a listing of vascular plant species occuring at each site is provided.

Sites by treatment

Acknowledgements:
Funding for this research is provided by the Arctic Sciences Division of the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award # OPP-0632263 & # OPP-0856516) with logistics provided by UMIAQ and the Barrow Arctic Research Consortium (BASC).