PBG03 Disk pasture meter measurements to estimate plant standing biomass in the Patch-Burn Grazing experiment at Konza Prairie

"PBG" datasets are associated with a long-term, large-scale study that is addressing the effects of fire-grazing interactions in the context of a Patch-Burn Grazing management system designed to promote grassland heterogeneity. Effects of patch-burn grazing management on plant and animal diversity and the nature and variety of wildlife habitat are being assessed in two replicate management units, each consisting of three pastures (watersheds) designated C03A/C03B/C03C and C3SA/C3SB/C3SC. In each patch-burn grazing unit, one watershed is burned and two that are left unburned in a given year. The burning treatments are rotated annually so that each pasture is burned every third year. Each patch-burn grazing unit is paired with an annually-burned pasture for comparison with traditional grazing systems (C01A and C1SB). All grazing units are stocked with cow/calf pairs from approximately 1 May until 1 Oct at a stocking density equal to 3.2 ha per cow/calf. To examine the impact of patch burning and grazing in all 8 units, we monitor changes in plant species composition, residual biomass, grassland bird populations, insect populations, small mammal populations, soil nutrients, and stream water quality1 (1C3SA/C3SB/C3SC unit only). The KSU Department of Animal Science monitors cattle performance, including weight gain and body condition to assess the economic feasibility of using patch-burn management on a widespread basis. This dataset includes both the annual calibration data for the disk pasture meter measurements (PBG031) and the actual disk pasture meter measurements in the PBG experiment (PBG032). Measurements were taken at a total of 64 transects (8 watersheds x 4 sites per watershed x 2 pasture meter transects per site). Each cattle-grazed watershed (designated as of May 2011 C3A, C3B, C3C, and C1A) and the four Shane cattle-grazed watersheds (C1B, C3SA, C3SB, and C3SC) includes 4 plant composition sampling transects (A-D). Pasture meter measurements were taken along two transects adjacent and parallel to the plant composition transects in each of these watersheds. Standing biomass samples for pasture meter calibration were also collected near the plant composition transects in the same 8 watersheds.

PBG数据集关联于一项长期大规模研究，该研究针对旨在提升草地异质性的斑块焚烧放牧（Patch-Burn Grazing）管理体系下火-放牧交互效应展开探究。研究在两个重复管理单元中评估斑块焚烧放牧管理对动植物多样性、野生动物栖息地属性与类型的影响，每个管理单元包含3个牧场（集水区），编号分别为C03A、C03B、C03C与C3SA、C3SB、C3SC。在每个斑块焚烧放牧单元中，某一年度仅焚烧一个集水区，其余两个集水区保持未焚烧状态；焚烧处理每年轮换一次，确保每个牧场每3年接受一次焚烧。每个斑块焚烧放牧单元均搭配一个年度焚烧牧场，用于与传统放牧系统（C01A与C1SB）开展对照研究。所有放牧单元的放牧时段均为每年5月1日至10月1日左右，放牧载畜量设定为每3.2公顷承载1对母牛-犊牛。为探究斑块焚烧与放牧对全部8个单元的影响，本研究监测以下指标的变化：植物物种组成、残留生物量、草地鸟类种群、昆虫种群、小型哺乳动物种群、土壤养分，以及溪流水质¹（仅针对C3SA/C3SB/C3SC单元）。堪萨斯州立大学（Kansas State University, KSU）动物科学系会监测牛群性能指标，包括增重与体况，以评估大规模应用斑块焚烧放牧管理模式的经济可行性。本数据集包含两项内容：一是圆盘牧场仪（disk pasture meter）测量的年度校准数据（编号PBG031），二是PBG实验中实际的圆盘牧场仪测量数据（编号PBG032）。本次测量共覆盖64条样带，具体为8个集水区 × 每个集水区4个采样点 × 每个采样点2条牧场仪样带。每个由牛群放牧的集水区（2011年5月时编号为C3A、C3B、C3C与C1A），以及4个由Shane负责管理的牛放牧集水区（C1B、C3SA、C3SB、C3SC），均设置4条植物组成采样样带（编号A-D）。在上述每个集水区中，牧场仪测量样带均沿与植物组成样带相邻且平行的方向布设，共设置2条。研究人员还在上述8个集水区的植物组成样带附近，采集了用于牧场仪校准的现存生物量样本。