This dataset contains data from a simulated warming experiment described in the paper: “Zhang, C., Li, XT., and An, YM. Effects of experimental warming on vegetative and reproductive growth of Polygonum viviparaum in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Nordic Journal of Botany. DOI: 10.1111/njb.03157”. 

The experiment investigated Polygonum viviparaum, a perennial herb distributed widely in arctic and alpine regions, under two different levels of experimental warming treatments to examine effects of warming on its vegetative and reproductive growth. Two types of open top chambers (OTCs), large and small, were used to generate lower and higher warming levels.

The dataset consists of the vegetative and reproductive characters of P. viviparaum in control plots, large OTCs and small OTCs. The characters include plant height, leaf number, length of the longest leaf, flower diameter, bulbil length, number of flowers per spike, number of bulbils per spike, flower proportion, dry weight of stem and leaves, dry weight of flowers per spike, dry weight of bulbils per spike, reproductive allocation and bulbil germination rate.

Main results of the experiment are that (1) the increased temperature promoted both vegetative and reproductive growth of P. viviparaum, but there was a significant trade-off between them. Decreased reproductive allocation under warming suggested that more available resources were devoted to vegetative growth, resulting in increased plant height, leaf number and length of the longest leaf; (2) After warming, the number and dry weight of flowers per spike decreased while the number and dry weight of bulbils per spike increased, indicating more investment to asexual reproduction over sexual reproduction in P. viviparaum; (3) The increase of warming further strengthened the above variation trends of vegetative and reproductive growth of P. viviparaum.

The dataset was collected during a simulated warming experiment at the Haibei Alpine Meadow Ecosystem Research Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences. We used the linear mixed-effect model to test the effects of experimental warming on vegetative and reproductive characters of P. viviparaum. In the model, ‘year’ and ‘plot’ (for bulbil germination rate, only ‘plot’) were defined as random parameters and ‘treatment’ was defined as fixed parameter. Differences among L, S and C treatments were analyzed using Duncan's multiple range test. Regression analyses were used to test the relationships between vegetative growth and reproductive growth, vegetative growth and sexual reproduction, vegetative growth and asexual reproduction, sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction. As the analyses were performed on the same data, all p-values were corrected by Bonferroni correction. Statistical analyses were performed using SAS version 9.22 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA).

The readme file contains an explanation of each of the variables in the dataset. Information on how the measurements were done can be found in the associated manuscript referenced above.