Vegetation diversity of valley bottom peatlands in the Upper Bow River Basin in Alberta, Canada.

The main goal of this research project is to characterize the vegetation diversity in mountain peatlands, since vegetation is a great indicator of wetland health due to its sensitivity to variation in environmental conditions. This data set provides species richness and percent cover data of vascular plants and bryophytes identified, to species level surveyed from one meter quadrats. Redundancies were employed to reduce sampling bias in percent cover estimates, and reduce the likelihood of missed species identifications. It also characterizes shrub and tree canopies, and canopy characteristics along several transects located in the Elbow, Ghost, and Jumping Pound Watersheds in the Upper Bow Basin in Alberta Canada. This data set is collected for the project titled “Future Water for the Mountain West", which is a Pillar 3 project under the Global Water Futures Program funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

Three 50m transects perpendicular to stream flow are established to capture changes along a hydrologic gradient. Quadrats are placed 10m apart, for a total of 5 quadrats along the transect. Percent cover data for vascular plants and bryophytes at each quadrat is surveyed independently by two surveyors, and then a second time together to reduce sampling and detection errors. The transects are walked by two surveyors at opposite ends to characterize shrub and tree vegetation as encountered, then repeated together to reduce sampling and detection errors. Covariate data (pH, conductivity, water samples for stable isotope analysis and sediment profiles) are taken to complete the site characterization.

Rooney, R., Lei, C., Bolding, M., Pearson, J., Reynolds, J., Streich, S. (2019). Vegetation diversity of valley bottom peatlands in the Upper Bow River Basin in Alberta, Canada. Waterloo, Canada: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN). Unpublished Data.

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