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Aims: An Arctic Vegetation Classification (AVC) is needed to address issues related to rapid Arctic-wide changes to climate, land-use, and biodiversity. Location: The 7.1 million km2 Arctic tundra biome. Approach and conclusions: The purpose, scope and conceptual framework for an Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) and Classification (AVC) were developed during numerous workshops starting in 1992. The AVA and AVC are modeled after the European vegetation archive (EVA) and classification (EVC). The AVA will use Turboveg for data management. The AVC will use a Braun-Blanquet (Br.-Bl.) classification approach. There are approximately 31,000 Arctic plots that could be included in the AVA. An Alaska AVA (AVA-AK, 24 datasets, 3026 plots) is a prototype for archives in other parts of the Arctic. The plan is to eventually merge data from other regions of the Arctic into a single Turboveg v3 database. We present the pros and cons of using the Br.-Bl. classification approach compared to the EcoVeg (US) and Biogeoclimatic Ecological Classification (Canada) approaches. The main advantages are that the Br.-Bl. approach already has been widely used in all regions of the Arctic, and many described, well-accepted vegetation classes have a pan-Arctic distribution. A crosswalk comparison of Dryas octopetala communities described according to the EcoVeg and the Braun-Blanquet approaches indicates that the non-parallel hierarchies of the two approaches make crosswalks difficult above the plantcommunity level. A preliminary Arctic prodromus contains a list of typical Arctic habitat types with associated described syntaxa from Europe, Greenland, western North America, and Alaska. Numerical clustering methods are used to provide an overview of the variability of habitat types across the range of datasets and to determine their relationship to previously described Braun-Blanquet syntaxa. We emphasize the need for continued maintenance of the Pan-Arctic Species List, and additional plot data to

The Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA-AK, GIVD-ID: NA-US-014) is a free, publically available database archive of vegetation-plot data from the Arctic tundra region of northern Alaska. The archive currently contains 24 datasets with 3,026 non-overlapping plots. Of these, 74% have geolocation data with 25-m or better precision. Species cover data and header data are stored in a Turboveg database. A standardized Pan Arctic Species List provides a consistent nomenclature for vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens in the archive. A web-based online Alaska Arctic Geoecological Atlas (AGA-AK) allows viewing and downloading the species data in a variety of formats, and provides access to a wide variety of ancillary data. We conducted a preliminary cluster analysis of the first 16 datasets (1,613 plots) to examine how the spectrum of derived clusters is related to the suite of datasets, habitat types, and environmental gradients. We present the contents of the archive, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and provide three supplementary files that include the data dictionary, a list of habitat types, an overview of the datasets, and details of the cluster analysis.