Tillage agriculture and afforestation threaten tropical savanna plant communities across a broad rainfall gradient in India

The consequences of land-use change for savanna biodiversity remain undocumented in most regions of tropical Asia. One such region is western Maharashtra, India, where old-growth savannas occupy a broad rainfall gradient and are increasingly rare due to agricultural conversion and afforestation.
To understand the consequences of land-use change, we sampled herbaceous plant communities of old-growth savannas and three alternative land-use types: tree plantations, tillage agriculture, and agricultural fallows (n=15 sites per type). Study sites spanned 457 to 1954 mm of mean annual precipitation—corresponding to the typical rainfall range of mesic savannas globally.
Across the rainfall gradient, we found consistent declines in old-growth savanna plant communities due to land-use change. Local-scale native species richness dropped from a mean of 12 species/m2 in old-growth savannas to 8, 6, and 3 species/m2 in tree plantations, fallows, and tillage agriculture, respectively. Cover of native..., During September and October 2021, the peak growing season for herbaceous plants, we sampled a total of 60 sites, n = 15 in each of the four land use types (Fig. 1). Prior to the field sampling, we randomly selected sites with the goal of stratifying across the rainfall gradient. For the stratification, we created a regional map based on the long-term MAP from a thirty-year period (1970 to 2000; 1 km2 resolution; Fick & Hijmans, 2017). While our goal was to sample sites stratified by MAP, we ultimately sampled fewer sites than expected in the 1500 to 2000 mm interval. This was because the wettest portion of the MAP gradient occupied a small area and contained only a few sites that met our selection criteria.  
At each of the 60 sites, we establish three 200-m2 sampling plots (20 m × 10 m) oriented in a random compass direction. In western Maharashtra, old-growth savannas and tree plantations typically occur as large patches: our old-growth sites ranged from 6 to 6160 ha with a media..., , # Tillage agriculture and afforestation threaten tropical savanna plant communities across a broad rainfall gradient in India

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

The dataset contains one sheet, and variables for each column are described below. Please refer to Methods section in the paper for more details.

## Description of the data and file structure

| Column name | Variable description | Unit |
| ----------- | -------------------- | ---- |
| site\_code | code of the site used | |
| site\_name | site name | |
| landuse | one of the four land use types surveyed | |
| MAP | Mean Annual Precipitation from Worldclim for that site | mm |
| MAT | Mean Annual Temperature from Worldclim for that site | Celcius |
| Total\_Cover | Total (Native+Invasive) herbaceous plant cover per meter square | % |
| Total\_Richness | Total (Native+Invasive) number of species of herbaceous plants per meter square | |
| Native\_Richness | Number of native he...