LTERN Data Portal

The objective of the Australian Tundra Experiment is to assess the likely response of vegetation and invertebrates to temperature increases attained through passive warming. The Australian Tundra Experiment follows the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) protocol (Molau & Mølgaard 1996, Jarrad et al. 2009) which focuses on the growth and phenological responses of cold adapted vascular plant species to environmental change, specifically, to an increase in summer (growing season) temperatures. In addition to monitoring vegetation responses, the experimental warming chambers were used to monitor the response of invertebrates to warming. Warming is achieved using hexagonal fibreglass open-top warming chambers (OTCs). The OTCs were set up in December 2003 at 4 sites within a 2 × 4.5 km area of the Bogong High Plains, Victoria, Australia, known as Rocky Knobs (36.90ºS, 147.27ºE). Two of the sites were established on vegetation that had been recently burnt by the 2003 bushfires. The sites are at approximately 1700 m above sea level and generally have snow cover of variable depth for 3 to 4 months each year (June-July to September-October). At each site, permanent plots of 1m2 were selected to include as many of the common vascular grassland species as possible. Treatments were then allocated at random for a total of 40 control and 40 warmed plots. This dataset contains microclimate data for a subset of plots from 6-06-2004 to 18-04-2013.