Nunatak Vegetation Monitoring In Southwest Alaska Parks

2005-2016 monitoring data tracks vegetation composition and structure on isolated mountain peaks in Kenai Fjords and Lake Clark National Parks. The Southwest Alaska Inventory & Monitoring Network collected species richness, frequency, cover, and height data across eight sites during field visits. This package includes site event data and species observations from quadrat and point-intercept surveys.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in species richness and frequency from 2005 to 2016 using quadrat survey data.
• Model relationships between plant community structure and site location data across eight nunataks.
• Compare vascular plant, non-vascular plant, and lichen cover data between 2005 and 2016 sampling events.
• Assess vegetation height class distributions from the 2016 point-intercept survey data.

Strengths

• Data spans 11 years with revisits to seven of eight original sites.
• Includes five structured CSV files covering site events, species observations, and vegetation structure.

Limitations

• Three of the five data files contain observations from only the 2016 sampling event, limiting temporal analysis.
• Sample size is limited to eight specific nunatak sites within two national parks.

Provenance

Source

Southwest Alaska Inventory & Monitoring Network (SWAN), Department of the Interior.

Collection Method

Field-based monitoring program using quadrat and point-intercept surveys at established sites.

Time Range

2005-2016

Freshness

Data collection concluded in 2016; package metadata was updated in 2026.

Geography

Kenai Fjords National Park and Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA.