Understory plant community data collected before and after mechanical forest restoration treatments, Colorado Front Range

This data publication contains understory plant community and other data for 168 plots located in or adjacent to 16 mechanical forest restoration treatment units in dry conifer forests of the Front Range, Colorado, USA. Data were collected between 2011 and 2021 in the plots 1-2 years pre-treatment, 1-2 years post-treatment, and 4-6 years post-treatment. Understory plant community data include field measurements of understory plant presence and cover by species or higher taxonomic level. Ancillary data include field measurements of overstory tree (e.g., live overstory basal area), substrate (e.g., litter and duff depth), and topographic (e.g., aspect) conditions, as well as derived measurements of climatic (e.g., long-term mean climatic water stress) and topographic (e.g., topographic position index) conditions.Data were collected to investigate the effects of mechanical forest restoration treatments on understory plants in dry conifer forests of the Colorado Front Range.For more information about this study and these data, see Briggs et al. (2017) and Demarest et al. (2023).