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（PBG datasets）关联于一项长期大规模研究，旨在探究火烧-放牧交互作用对以提升草地异质性为目标的斑块火烧放牧（Patch-Burn Grazing）管理系统的影响。该研究针对斑块火烧放牧管理对动植物多样性，以及野生动物生境的性质与多样性的影响展开评估，设置了2个重复管理单元，每个单元包含3个牧场（集水区），分别命名为C03A/C03B/C03C与C3SA/C3SB/C3SC。在每个斑块火烧放牧单元中，某一年会对1个集水区实施火烧处理，其余2个集水区留作未火烧对照；火烧处理每年轮换，确保每个牧场每3年被火烧一次。每个斑块火烧放牧单元均配有1个每年实施火烧的牧场，作为传统放牧系统的对照（分别为C01A与C1SB）。
所有放牧单元的放牧时段为每年5月1日至10月1日左右，载畜率设定为每头母牛-犊牛组对应3.2公顷土地。为探究斑块火烧与放牧对全部8个集水区的影响，研究人员监测了多项指标：植物物种组成、残留生物量、草原鸟类种群、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集水区）。
堪萨斯州立大学（KSU）动物科学系负责监测牛群的生长性能，包括增重与体况评分，以评估斑块火烧管理模式大规模推广的经济可行性。
本数据集包含两部分内容：一是圆盘牧草测定仪（disk pasture meter）校准年度数据（编号PBG031），二是PBG实验中实际采集的圆盘牧草测定仪测量数据（编号PBG032）。本次测量共布设64条样带：8个集水区 × 每个集水区4个样点 × 每个样点2条圆盘牧草测定仪样带。
每个由母牛-犊牛组放牧的集水区（2011年5月时命名为C3A、C3B、C3C与C1A），以及4个由Shane牛群放牧的集水区（C1B、C3SA、C3SB与C3SC），均布设4条植物群落取样样带（编号A-D）。圆盘牧草测定仪的测量沿每个上述集水区内与植物群落样带相邻且平行的2条样带开展。同时，在相同8个集水区的植物群落样带附近，采集了用于圆盘牧草测定仪校准的现存生物量样本。