Variations in vegetation cover and species composition related to climate are evident from the southern to northern Arctic. Scientists involved in the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Mapping (CAVM) project and undergraduate students in a University of Minnesota field course conducted a north-south transect in the Canadian Arctic in order to investigate this large-scale variation in vegetation. Data obtained from the transect will help define phytogeographic zonation in the Arctic related to climate. Four goals of the project were: 1) to help resolve interpretations of Arctic vegetation zonation (i.e. the Russian, European, and North American schools of thought) in order to develop a uniform internationally accepted terminology for use in the CAVM, 2) better understand vegetation patterns in the least documented of the circumpolar regions, 3) develop a table of major vegetation types along a mesotopographic sequence within vegetation zones related to climate, and 4) to further interest and research in the Arctic by involving graduate and undergraduate students in the project through a University of Minnesota sponsored field course, Arctic Field Ecology. University students from the United States and Canada joined vegetation scientists from Canada, Germany, Norway, Russia, and the United States in the transect from the northern to southern Canadian Arctic designed to investigate large-scale variation in vegetation related to climate.
