Spruce and Peatland ResponsesUnder Changing Environments
This data set provides the environmental measurements collected during the implementation of operational methods to achieve both deep soil heating (0-3 m) and whole-ecosystem warming (WEW) appropriate to the scale of tall-stature, high-carbon, boreal forest peatlands. The methods were developed to allow scientists to provide a plausible set of ecosystem warming scenarios within which immediate and longer term (one decade) responses of organisms (microbes to trees) and ecosystem functions (carbon, water and nutrient cycles) could be measured. Elevated CO2 was also incorporated to test how temperature responses may be modified by atmospheric CO2 effects on carbon cycle processes. Data through 2019 now available.
This data set provides a record of the half-hourly automated water table depth data collected for 12 SPRUCE plots (4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, and 21) beginning during deep peat heating (DPH) in 2015 and continuing throughout the whole ecosystem warming (WEW) manipulations for the SPRUCE Project (Hanson et al. 2017). Also provided are plot normalized data for water table depths with respect to mean hollow locations within each plot. The hollow referenced data provide the basis for the intercomparison of peat saturation or aeration across treatment plots. A limited data set for manual water table observations in 2019 is also provided as a reference to the plot center automated observations
This dataset consists of PhenoCam data from the SPRUCE experiment from the beginning of whole ecosystem warming (Hanson et al. 2017) in August 2015 through March-31 of 2020, with start- and end-of-season phenological transition dates derived through the end of autumn 2019. Digital cameras, or phenocams, installed in each SPRUCE enclosure track seasonal variation in vegetation “greenness”, a proxy for vegetation phenology and associated physiological activity. Three separate regions of interest (ROIs) were defined for each camera field of view, corresponding to different vegetation types and demarcating: Picea trees (vegetation type EN, for evergreen needleleaf); Larix trees (vegetation type DN, for deciduous needleleaf); and the mixed shrub layer (vegetation type SH).
This data set consists of phenological transition dates, as derived from direct observations of vegetative and reproductive phenology recorded by a human observer, from the SPRUCE experiment during 2019, the fourth full year of whole-ecosystem warming (Hanson et al. 2017). Both spring and autumn phenological events are included. Since April 2016, human observers have been directly tracking the phenology of both woody and herbaceous species on a weekly schedule within the SPRUCE experimental chambers. The observed date reported here is the first survey date on which an event/phenophase was definitively observed.
