Annual precipitation and photo-derived vegetation and litter cover (2013-2021) used for analysis in the manuscript “Growing grasses in the desert: Multi-scale Interactions and State Change Reversal in Drylands”

This dataset contains water year precipitation collected from
meteorological stations, litter and vegetation cover values derived
from overhead photos, and litter and soil accumulation in lateral
photos in a long-term experiment (2013-2021) of cross-scale
interactions (CSIs) at the Jornada Basin LTER site in southern New
Mexico, U.S.A. Manipulations were initiated in 2013 at 15
experimental blocks, each with 4 treatment plots: plant-scale
herbicide of mesquite shrubs, patch-scale connectivity modifiers
(ConMods), herbicide + ConMods, control without manipulations.
Litter, soil, and vegetation cover were estimated using repeat
overhead photographs of microplots within treatment and control
plots. Litter and soil accumulation were estimated from lateral
photos of ConMods. This dataset utilized QuickBird imagery from 2011
to assess ground cover classes within the Jornada Basin, focusing on
bare ground, herbaceous, and shrub cover. Daily precipitation data
collected from 13 meteorological stations were used to calculate
water year (1 October-30 September) precipitation from 2013 through
2021. This dataset provides supporting data for the manuscript
"Growing grasses in the desert: Multi-scale Interactions and
State Change Reversal in Drylands" by Peters et al.