Vegetation surveys in the riparian (bosque) corridor of the Middle Rio Grande valley, NM

This dataset contains vegetation cover information from 34 long-term Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP) sites from 2000 – 2021. Data were collected along ten 30-m transects at each site at the centimeter scale each year in August-early October as funding and site access allowed. At the fullest extent, sites spanned 520 km of the riparian forest along the Rio Grande. The purpose of this dataset is to track plant species at sites along the Rio Grande in New Mexico. From this dataset, changes in plant species abundance, richness, and species diversity can be tracked and analyzed with ecosystem drivers such as flooding, fire, species removal/fuel reduction projects, and climate change. Species are coded using USDA Plant Database codes, allowing species information to be added to each species, including origin (native or nonnative), duration (e.g., annual, biennial, perennial), and plant type (e.g., grass, forb, vine, shrub, tree). This dataset has allowed the tracking of the ascendance of nonnatives in some sites, the recovery of natives in other sites, success or lack of success following restoration projects, and records of new species occurring in various counties and the state of New Mexico.