Biological Soil Crust (BSC) surveys on the Brogger Peninsula, Svalbard, 2014-2025
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02276
Abstract:
This dataset comprises data from three Biological Soil Crust (BSC) surveys at six sites across the Brogger peninsula, Svalbard. The cover and composition of biological soil crusts were surveyed at the same 6 sites in 2014, 2024 and 2025. Surveys were conducted using the point-intercept method using randomly placed quadrats within a defined area. Abiotic and biotic elements were classified into nine functional groups representative of the possible components of the BSC community. The 2025 survey also included species level data. The primary surveyor, Dr Claudia Colesie, participated in the data collection in all three sampling efforts, ensuring consistency in classification across years.
The research was originally funded as a part of Dr Colesie's PhD project, with repeat surveys in 2024 and 2025 funded under the NERC Standard Grant 'TundraTime: Plant phenology change as a driver of arctic greening trends'.
Citation:
Colesie, C., Gerwin, M., Briegel-Williams, L., Garcia Criado, M., & Subrt, J. (2026). Biological Soil Crust (BSC) surveys on the Brogger Peninsula, Svalbard, 2014-2025 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/d1983bc5-7257-4872-9289-b6b4bad96169
Access Data
License
| Access: | The data are under embargo until the publication of an associated paper. |
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| Use: | This data is governed by the NERC data policy (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/) and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/). |
Basic Information
| Creation Date: | 2026-09-17 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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Additional Information
| Reference: | Williams, L., Borchhardt, N., Colesie, C., Baum, C., Komsic-Buchmann, K., Rippin, M., Becker, B., Karsten, U. & Büdel, B. 2017. Biological soil crusts of Arctic Svalbard and of Livingston Island, Antarctica. Polar Biology 40: 399-411. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-016-1967-1 | |
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| Quality: | Due to the random sampling methodology within the 10 x 10 m plots, there is a possibility that variation in the composition is due to the sampling of different areas within the plot. The sites were selected due to the relative homogeneity of the BSC vegetation within, however, microenvironmental variation exists within these areas and may impact the type of biotic/abiotic cover. | |
| Lineage/Methodology: | Surveys were carried out at six sites across the Brogger peninsula, Svalbard: Daerten (78 degrees 51'00.55"N/11 degrees 47'31.92"E), Brandal (78 degrees 56'17.10"N/11 degrees 49'46.14"E), Geopol (78 degrees 56'58.38"N/11 degrees 28'35.64"E), London Bloemstrand (78 degrees 57'46.14"N/12 degrees 04'52.26"E), Zeppelin Tower (78 degrees 55'16.80"N/11 degrees 56'52.32"E), Ny-Alesund Station (78 degrees 55'26.33"N/11 degrees 55'23.84"E). Surveys were carried out in 2014 (19/08/2014-24/08/2014), 2024 (03/07/2024 - 09/07/2024) and 2025 (05/08/2025 - 09/08/2025) and all sites were surveyed each time, with the exception of Daerten, which was excluded from the 2025 survey. In the initial 2014 survey, site corners were GPS-tagged, and the coordinates used to relocate the sites for the subsequent surveys. The sampling method remained the same throughout the surveys. 10 m transects were drawn from the site corner in northerly and easterly directions, creating a 10 x 10 m plot. The plot was divided into 100 numerically ordered subplots of 1 m^2, of which 25 were randomly selected for biological soil crust functional group surveys. A square point-frame quadrat of 0.25 x 0.25 m2 was placed in the top-left corner of each sampled subplot. Generally 25 pin-points were recorded per quadrat (range 23-29). Abiotic or biotic elements at each pin-point were classified into nine functional groups, representative of the possible components of the BSC community: Green algal (Light) crust, Cyanobacterial (Dark) crust, Cyanolichens, Chlorolichens, Bryophytes, Vascular plants, Litter, Sand or Stone. Data are presented as the number of pin-point 'hits' per number of possible pin-points per quadrat for each functional group. In the 2024 and 2025 surveys, the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th subplots were surveyed a second time to obtain species-level data. |
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REFERENCE MATERIALS:
Extent
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2025-08-05 |
| End Date | 2025-08-09 |
| Start Date | 2014-08-19 |
| End Date | 2014-08-24 |
| Start Date | 2024-07-03 |
| End Date | 2024-07-09 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | 78.85015 |
| Northernmost | 78.96282 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | 11.47657 |
| Easternmost | 12.08118 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Svalbard |
| Detailed Location | Brogger Peninsula |
Storage
| Data Storage: | There are two Comma Separated Values (.csv) files containing functional group level ('BSC_FunctionalType_Cover') and species level ('BSC_Species_Cover') cover data. The files have columns: Site, Date, BSC Type/Species, Plot (quadrat number 1-25 for Functional Types or 1-6 for Species), Value (number of 'hits' within quadrat), and Points (number of 'hits' in total per quadrat - this is usually 25, though occasionally more than one species would be hit in a single pin-point or there was an erroneous extra or missed 'hit'). |
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