Plant functional traits of 337 native Texas grasses

Premise: Understanding relationships among grass traits, fire, and herbivores may help improve conservation strategies for savannas that are threatened by novel disturbance regimes. Emerging theory, developed in Africa, emphasizes that functional traits of savanna grasses reflect the distinct ways that fire and grazers consume biomass. Specifically, functional trade-offs related to flammability and palatability predict that highly flammable grass species will be unpalatable, while highly palatable species will impede fire.
Methods: We quantified six culm and leaf traits of 337 native grasses of Texas—a historical savanna region that has been transformed by fire exclusion, megafaunal extinctions, and domestic livestock.
Results: Multivariate analyses of traits revealed three functional strategies. ‘Grazer grasses’ (n=50) had culms that were short, narrow, and horizontal, and leaves with high width:length and low C:N—trait values that attract grazers and avoid fire. ‘Fire grasses’ (n=104)..., , , # Plant functional traits of 337 native Texas grasses

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6msf](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6msf)

## Description of the data and file structure

*Maximum culm height*—(cm) is the maximum attainable height of the grass culm. Because maximum culm height for many species is not accurately reflected in herbarium specimens, we extracted data from Silveus (1933), Gould (1975), Shaw (2011) and Clayton et al. (2016).

*Culm diameter*—(mm) is the diameter of the internode of the culm at its widest point. At the S. M. Tracy herbarium, Texas, we measured one randomly selected culm per specimen using a digital micrometer (Mitutoyo 293-344-30 Digimatic Micrometer, 0.001 mm precision) positioned at the thickest part of the second long internode following standard protocols (Wigley et al., 2020). In cases where the culm was not round, we measured the shortest dimension.

*Culm angle*—(no units, categorical variable) is the angle between the grass culm and the...