15 August 2016 Winter is Coming

TundraA treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation such as lichens, mosses, and stunted shrubs. CHICKENS!

Seven lovely ptarmigans trotted through our site today. They are starting to show their little white bloomers! Winter is coming.

Vegetation Survey

Collaboration With Swiss Researchers

Marguerite Mauritz and I agreed to help with a Swiss project called "Disentangling Snow and Temperature effects on Plant Communities in Cold Biomes". The project's principle investigators (PI's) want to compare sites from alpine and arctic tundra from around the world, sites that have long term climate data available. They are specifically interested to analyze snow and temperature effects on species composition, growth and phenology of the plants that inhabit these biomes.

The composition of the plant community in cold biomes is largely a factor of how long the growing season lasts, as well as the growing season temperatures. The PI's have found that in most plant studies, detailed information on climate is missing. For example, the timing of snow melt in these systems is not available, and snow melt influences the amount of light available to the plant for photosynthesis, and the temperature of the ground. The PI's hope that by placing vegetation plots next to climate stations already in existence, that they can tweeze apart the impacts of snow and temperature on the plants in these cold environments.

For more information on the Swiss research: http://www.slf.ch/ueber/organisation/oekologie/gebirgsoekosysteme/projekte/imis_vegetation/index_EN

Location

The vegetation survey was set up at the Gradient site next to the Eddy Covariance Tower (remember that Eddy is the divine instrument that records wind speed, air and soil temperature, CO2 flux at the landscape scale, snow depth and surely can also monitor my heart rate and blood pressure...just kidding.)

Size of Plots

We placed a marker as our center point, and set up two concentric circles the inner with a diameter of 75 cm and the outer at 150 cm. The circle was divided into 4 quadrants.

Measurements and Data Collected

First we identified the plant species found within the plot. We identified 7 species and then made rough estimates of their % coverage in each of the four quadrants. This was a bit uncomfortable for me, as it was more of a guesstimate. I imagine that if you did this guesstimating often enough, you would refine your guessing to better approximate reality – but I was not experienced.

Next we measured the height of 5 samples of the dominant species within each quadrant, and then 5 height samples of random plants within the quadrant. I felt much better at this task – armed with a ruler, this felt a little more precise.

Finally, we took biomass samples of two 20 by 20 cm plots. It was like giving the tundra a hair cut, using scissors to trim all the plants in the plot down to the surface. These biomass samples will be taken back to the Fairbanks lab and dried and once dry, measured for their mass.

All this data, including the data from the Eddy Covariance Tower will be sent on to the Swiss Researchers to include in their meta-data analysis.