Core Research Site Web Seasonal Biomass and Seasonal and Annual NPP Data for the Net Primary Production Study at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico

This long-term study at the Sevilleta LTER measures net primary
production (NPP) across four distinct ecosystems: creosote-dominant
shrubland (Site C, est. winter 1999), black grama-dominant grassland
(Site G, est. winter 1999), blue grama-dominant grassland (Site B,
est. winter 2002), and pinon-juniper woodland (Site P, est. winter
2003), which is now in its own dataset, SEV278 (Pinon-Juniper (Core
Site) Quadrat Data). Net primary production is a fundamental
ecological variable that quantifies rates of carbon consumption and
fixation. Estimates of NPP are important in understanding energy
flow at a community level as well as spatial and temporal responses
to a range of ecological processes. While measures of both below-
and above-ground biomass are important in estimating total NPP, this
study focuses on above-ground net primary production (ANPP).
Above-ground net primary production is the change in plant biomass,
including loss to death and decomposition, over a given period of
time. Volumetric measurements are made using vegetation data from
permanent plots collected in SEV129, "Core Research Site Web
Quadrat Data" and regressions correlating biomass and volume
constructed using seasonal harvest weights from SEV157, "Net
Primary Productivity (NPP) Weight Data."