Circumpolar Arctic vegetation: a hierarchic review and roadmap toward an internationally consistent approach to survey, archive and classify tundra plot data

摘要

Satellite-derived remote-sensing products are providing a modern circumpolar perspective of Arcticvegetation and its changes, but this new view is dependent on a long heritage of ground-basedobservations in the Arctic. Several products of the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna are key toour current understanding.Wereview aspects of the PanArctic Flora, the Circumpolar ArcticVegetation Map, the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, and the Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) as theyrelate to efforts to describe and map the vegetation, plant biomass, and biodiversity of the Arctic atcircumpolar, regional, landscape and plot scales. Cornerstones for all these tools are ground-basedplant-species and plant-community surveys. TheAVA is in progress and will store plot-basedvegetation observations in a public-accessible database for vegetation classification, modeling,diversity studies, and other applications.Wepresent the current status of the Alaska Arctic VegetationArchive (AVA-AK), as a regional example for the panarctic archive, and with a roadmap for acoordinated international approach to survey, archive and classify Arctic vegetation.Wenote the needfor more consistent standards of plot-based observations, and make several recommendations toimprove the linkage between plot-based observations biodiversity studies and satellite-basedobservations of Arctic vegetation.