Grassland bud and shoot demography depend on both amount and frequency of nitrogen addition

The amount and frequency of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition have dramatically increased, profoundly influencing population regeneration, community composition, and productivity in grasslands. Perennial species in grasslands primarily grow and expand clonally, yet it remains unclear how their belowground buds and aboveground shoots respond to the amount and frequency of N deposition.
We conducted a long-term (2008-2022) N addition experiment in a semiarid grassland. The experiment included nine addition amounts (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 50 g N m-2 yr-1) and two addition frequencies: low frequency (twice per year) and high frequency (once per month). This allowed us to assess the interactive effects of N addition amount and frequency on bud density, shoot density, and the ratio of bud to shoot density (meristem limitation index, MLI) in semiarid grasslands.
We found that community bud and shoot densities declined with increasing N amount under biannual addition frequency but rem..., , # Data for: Grassland bud and shoot demography depend on both amount and frequency of nitrogen addition

Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.nzs7h4552

## Description of the data and file structure

We provide one archive file (**JEcol-2025-1472.zip**) containing two files: the main dataset in CSV format (**Bud+ANPP_data.csv**) and the R script used for statistical analyses (**Code_budbank+ANPP.R**).

The dataset file contains treatment information and data on belowground bud density, aboveground shoot density, meristem limitation index (MLI), and aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) for the whole plant community and major functional groups (rhizomatous grasses and bunchgrasses) under different nitrogen (N) addition amounts and frequencies.

The R script (**Code_budbank+ANPP.R**) was used for generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) analyses to test the main effects and interaction effects of nitrogen addition amount and nitrogen addition frequency on bud density, shoot density, MLI, and ANP..., ,