Cover crop species alter tallgrass prairie community assembly

Cover crops are increasingly being used in ecological restoration projects, and are hypothesized to facilitate establishment of sown species by reducing weed abundances without competing with the target mix. We tested these predictions and examined the role of cover crop species on later species composition and diversity using cover crop seed treatments. Treatments included a fall seeding of one annual (Raphanus sativus or Avena sativa), one biennial (Oenothera biennis), one perennial species (Elymus canadensis), two grass-forb species combinations, or nothing as a control. All plots received the same diverse tallgrass prairie seed mix in March of the following year. Plant communities were sampled through five growing seasons. The files associated with this experiment include data on community composition in 70 experimental plots (10 per treatment) taken on five different sample dates from 2016 to 2020. We also include data on aboveground biomass and canopy height measured in May and Ju..., , , # Data from: Cover crop species alter tallgrass prairie community assembly

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rjdfn2zf6](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rjdfn2zf6)

Authors: Andrew Kaul and Brian Wilsey

Affiliation: Iowa State University

Journal: Oecologia

This README provides a brief description of the files associated with this project and for each file, we provide a description of each column variable. This archive contains three data files:

“cc_community_data” – this excel file contains the plot-level measurements of plant community composition in all sampled plots in this study. This data is transcribed from the raw data, recorded on archival notebooks. Each numbered column represents a species. Each row represents a quadrat in a plot in a sample date.

“cc_species” – this excel file contains data on the attributes of each species sampled, including taxonomy, nativity, duration, and functional group membership.

“Cover Crop Function Measures” this excel file contains data on plot-le...,