Garcia et al. 2025_Journal of Vegetation Science

This dataset accompanies the manuscript “<i>Leaf it alone: Environmental factors outweigh herbivory as determinants of plant traits in a Mediterranean mountain</i>”, published in Journal of Vegetation Science. It contains data on Community Weighted Means of plant functional traits, red deer density (individuals per km²), red deer feeding time (total minutes of feeding activity) and environmental variables (altitude, tree cover, and northness) collected from 60 sampling points in the Lousã Mountain, central Portugal.Plant traits were measured for both shrub and herbaceous species and include specific leaf area (SLA), plant height, leaf size (leaf length and width), leaf form (perimeter and roundness), leaf biomass (fresh and dry leaf weight), and chlorophyll-related properties (dark fluorescence time, FT, and dark quantum yield, QY). Red deer herbivory pressure was assessed using faecal pellet counts and analysis of camera traps. Environmental variables were extracted from field measurements and spatial datasets.These data offer insights into plant community resilience under intermediate herbivory pressure, with potential applications in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.