The PAGE21 project has now been officially closed. The four years of research came to an end on October 31 2015, leaving only...
PAGE21 project was featured in a plenary session "Permafrost in the 21st century" at the 2015 Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik,...
Day 5 – Who is who?
Vegetation Inventory
Vegetation inventory at Storflaket. Are there any changes in what species exist due to increased snow cover in winter? (Photo: E. Torkelsson).Wind, wind, wind - what a great start of the day. We came to the mire and there were basically no mosquitoes!
But now back to work: In the snow manipulation experiment that was briefly introduced in the background material we look at what effect more snow has on permafrost and vegetation.
Each year since the beginning of the experiment (2005), we have made vegetation inventories to see if and how species composition i.e. what type of vegetation is on the mire have changed.
Our task for today was to use a frame with points and record what species can be found at each plot. We have 12 plots in the experiment. On 6 of them we have snow fences to increase the snow depth during winter and 6 plots are used as control plots.
Photo: E. TorkelssonWe have already in the 7 years that the experiment has been running detected that grasses are now dominating the six plots where we have increased the snow depth during winter.
The evening was spent weighing vegetation removal samples and then sauna and off to bed.
Margareta