C1bio.txt C2bio.txt C3bio.txt C4bio.txt C5bio.txt C6bio.txt Authors: Catharine Copass F.S. Chapin III A.D. McGuire D.A. Walker Grant: OPP-9732126 Overview: Peak season understory biomass and leaf area index (LAI) from the ATLAS sites in Council (C1-Forest, C2-Tundra, C3-Tall Shrub, C4- Woodland, C5- Barren or Heath, C6- Low Shrub). Instrument: One graduate student and an army of high school and undergraduate students. Scissors, clippers, breadknives, shovels and handsaws. Data Collection: We sampled vegetation in the 100x100m sites that were centered on the eddy covariance tower. Sites C2, C6 and C4 were harvested in 1999, and C1, C3, C5 were done in 2000. We randomly selected plots at the sites. Vegetation was point framed for cover (see companion cover spreadsheet Copass_Council_Cover.xls) and biomass was harvested. The vascular plants were harvested at the top of the moss layer. The moss layer was also collected. The soils below the plot was removed to 15 cm was removed and the belowground stems were harvested from that and separated by functional group. In the sites with shrubs over 50cm (C3, C4, C1), the tall shrubs were pointframed and then harvested on a 1m2 plot with a smaller 50x20 cm quadrat nested within. The biomass was separated by species or plant functional type (PFT), by tissue type (leaves, stems etc) and by new tissue vs old. Subsampling was employed when biomass quantities were too voluminous for reasonable sorting. The biomass was oven dried for at least 48 hours at 60 degrees and weighed. Leaf area index was calculated from subsamples that were scanned for areas using the WinRhizo system. Data Format: Data is in an excel workbook, with one worksheet per site. The first column contains the PFT (Betula, Salix, Decid (deciduous), Egreen (evergreen), Forb, Grass, Lichen, Moss, Sedge). The second column is the six letter species code. The third column is the tissue type. (nl=new leaf, ol= old leaf, bgs=belowground stem, os=old stem, ns=new stem, dead= dead , ss, ms, ls, ds =small, medium, large and dead stems, categories from the tall shrubs only. The third column also contains calcuated categories such as TotalL= Total live biomass, TotalL+D= Total live plus dead tissue, new= newly produced tissue, and various types of LAI. Following the categorical columns are the individual plots for each site. After these I have calculated total, average and standard error of the average. I have also calculated totals for each of the PFTs and Grand Totals for the sites. Data Remarks: This data is basically in raw format. I have checked it as carefully as possible, however I anticipate that are still some errors. Please contact me if you find them or have helpful suggestions. References: See any data sets by Beringer for climate and flux data from these sites, or additional Copass data sets for LAI and thaw measurements.