The Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA-AK)

The Alaska Arctic VegetationArchive (AVA-AK, GIVD-ID: NA-US-014) is a free, publically available database archive of vegetation-plot data from the Arctic tundraregion of northern Alaska. The archive currently contains 24 datasets with 3,026 non-overlapping plots. Of these, 74% have geolocationdata with 25-m or better precision. Species cover data and header data are stored in a Turboveg database. A standardized Pan ArcticSpecies List provides a consistent nomenclature for vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens in the archive. A web-based online Alaska ArcticGeoecological Atlas (AGA-AK) allows viewing and downloading the species data in a variety of formats, and provides access to a wide variety of ancillary data. We conducted a preliminary cluster analysisof the first 16 datasets (1,613 plots) to examine how the spectrum of derived clusters is related to the suite of datasets, habitat types, and environmental gradients. We present the contents of the archive, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and provide three supplementary files that include the data dictionary, a list of habitat types, an overview of the datasets, and details of the cluster analysis.