Grassland type and seasonal effects have a bigger influence on plant functional and taxonomical diversity than prairie dog disturbances in semi-arid grasslands

Prairie dogs (Cynomys sp.) are considered keystone species and ecosystem engineers for their grazing and burrowing activities (summarized here as disturbances). As climate changes and its variability increases, the mechanisms underlying organisms’ interactions with their habitat will likely shift. Understanding the mediating role of prairie dog disturbance on vegetation structure, and its interaction with environmental conditions through time, will increase knowledge on the risks and vulnerability of grasslands. Here, we compared how plant taxonomical diversity, functional diversity metrics and community-weighted trait means (CWM) respond to prairie dog C. mexicanus disturbance across grassland types and seasons (dry and wet) in a priority conservation semiarid grassland of Northeast Mexico. Our findings suggest that functional metrics and CWM analyses responded to interactions between prairie dog disturbance, grassland type and season, whilst species diversity and cover measures were l..., , The excel file includes 4 sheets:
MetaDataIncludes a general description od the dataset.  Explains each sheet name, the variable full names, codes, measurement units or classes and any extra explanations if necessary.
traitlist-referencesIncludes a references of each trait for each species.
leafareaIncludes individual leaf area measures for each species, with data of the season, site and grassland type (based on classification from Rodriguez-Barrera etal. 2022)
species-traits-cover-persiteIncludes cover data for each site, including season, prairie dog condition and grassland type (based on Rodriguez-Barrera et al. 2022).