Аннотация:Arctic tundra ecosystemsoccurin a broad circumpolar belt that extendsfrom areas north of 80 ̊N to forest-tundra areas south of 60 ̊N, with mean July temperatures that vary from near 0 C to over 12 ̊C.Several conceptual approaches have beenused to subdivide the vegetation along the broadbioclimate gradientsof Eurasia (Alexandrova, 1980; Chernov & Matveyeva, 1997; Yurtsev, 1994a), North America (Bliss, 1997; Daniëls, Bültmann, Lünterbusch, & Wilhelm, 2000; Edlund,1990; Polunin, 1951),and the circumpolar Arctic (Elvebakk, Elven, & Razzhivin, 1999; Tuhkanen, 1984; D. A. Walker et al., 2005; Yurtsev, 1994b). Only afew studies, however,have attempted to examinecontinuous vegetation transitionsof zonal plant communitiesalong transectsthat traverse the full Arctic bioclimate gradient because of the rather daunting logistics involved. Examples exist for the TaymyrPeninsula, Russia(Matveyeva, 1998), the North America Arctic Transect (NAAT) (D. A. Walker, Kuss, et al., 2011b), andthe 1999 Canada transect for the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (Gonzalez, Gould, & Raynolds, 2000). Arctic alpinevegetation gradientshave been describedalong elevation gradientsin the mountains of southwestern Greenland (Sieg, Drees, & Daniëls, 2006). Here we describe the vegetation along the 1700-km Eurasia Arctic Transect (EAT) that includes the Yamal Peninsula and Franz Josef Land (Fig. 1).The aim is to characterize vegetation on zonal loamy and sandy soils along the complete maritime Arctic climate gradient in western arctic Russia to aid in remote-sensing interpretations of land-cover and land-use change (D. A. Walker, Epstein, et al., 2012a).The zonal patterns, geological conditions, permafrost, and summer-thaw depth (active layer) conditions are generally well described along the length of the peninsula.We analyze the variations in plant growth forms and species richness in each layer of the plant canopy with respect to summer temperature and soil texture, present a preliminary numerical classification, and use indirect ordination methods to analyze the relationship of the plots and species to a suite of measured environmental factors.