Data: Drought and fire determine juvenile and adult woody diversity and dominance in a semi-arid African savanna

Aim: To understand how communities of adult and juvenile (seedlings and saplings) woody plants were impacted by fire and the 2014 – 2016 El Niño drought in Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Methods: We used a landscape scale fire experiment spanning 2013-2019 in a semi-arid savanna in the central west of Kruger National Park (mean annual precipitation, 543 mm). Adult and juvenile woody species composition were recorded during and after the drought in 40 plots that experienced a mix of no fire, moderate fire and frequent fire treatments. Using multivariate modelling, we related community composition in juvenile and adult woody plants to year of sampling and the experimental fire treatments.
Results: Post-drought, there was significant adult woody plant top-kill, especially in dominant species Dichrostachys cinerea (81% reduction in abundance), Acacia nigrescens (30%), and Combretum apiculatum (19%), but no significant change in adult species richness. Two years post-drought, abundance ...