Arctic plant ecology: From tundra to polar desert in Svalbard - Unis

The significant results from ANOVA are given in Table 3. The Shannon’s H index as
well as the species density was highest where there was low (0.00­6.00%) and
intermediate (7.00­36.00%) amount of bare ground and in sparse (10.00 cm) organic soil.
Table 3. Significant results from ANOVA analysis.
Bare ground cover Organic soil depth
df F­value p­value df F­value p­value
Shannon’s H 2 7.56 0.008 3 5.36 0.016
Species density 2 6.65 0.011 3 5.65 0.013
The PCA ordination showed correlation between species richness and total species list,
and between Shannon’s H and species density (Fig. 3). 81.6% of the variation in the
data was explained by the first axis and 11.8% by the second axis. There was a
positive correlation between all of the following variables: organic soil depth,
bioclimatic zone, temperature and vascular biovolume. Bare ground was negatively
correlated with the variables mentioned above. pH was not correlated with the other
environmental variables. The sites were not significantly distributed according to the
environmental data.
­0.8 1.0
total species list
species richness
13
org. soil depth
2
bioclimatic zone
14 4
9
15
Shannon's H
species density
temperature 8
1
pH
­1.0 1.0
17
7
3
vasc. biovolume
5
6
12
10
bare ground
Figure 3. PCA analysis of biodiversity and chosen environmental data. Axis 1 spans 81.6% of
the variation and axis 2 spans 11.8%. The sites are marked according to bioclimatic
zones: A – black, B – grey, and C – white.
11