Survey of the vascular plants of Alert (Ellesmere Island, Canada), a polar desert at the northern tip of the Americas

Long-term monitoring is critical to guide conservation strategies and assess the impacts of climatic changes anthropogenic activities. In High Arctic ecosystems, information on distribution population trends plants dramatically lacking. During two field expeditions in 2018 2019, we conducted a systematic floristic survey together with opportunistic collecting polar desert surrounding Alert (Nunavut, Canada) update past vascular plant inventories. We recorded 58 species, which 54 species were over last seven decades, four that are additions local flora ( Draba pauciflora R. Brown, Festuca edlundiae S.G. Aiken, Consaul, & Lefkovitch, hyperborea Holmen ex Frederiksen, × Pucciphippsia vacillans (T. Fries) Tzvelev). With addition 19 previously reported but not found our survey, estimate richness study area at 77 species.