Data and code from: Fire-survival strategies of first-year acacia seedlings

Savannas—defined by discontinuous tree cover and continuous grass cover—are maintained by factors such as drought, fire, and herbivory which impose bottlenecks on tree populations. Despite evidence that young plants are particularly vulnerable to fire, surprisingly little is known about the traits that enable first-year seedlings to survive fire. This limits our understanding of the mechanisms underlying tree establishment and savanna dynamics more generally. We conducted a full factorial common garden experiment to measure the separate and combined impacts of fire, drought, and herbivory on rates on three- to six-month-old seedlings of 12 ‘Acacia’ (sensu lato) species in the genera Vachellia and Senegalia. Results demonstrate an overwhelming impact of fire on mortality, enhanced by drought, but the impact of herbivory was not detectable. Stem thickness was the best predictor of topkill and survival, with threshold diameters of 9.56 mm (95% CI 9.51–9.59) for well-watered and 11.52 mm..., , # Fire-survival strategies of first-year acacia seedlings Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.15dv41p9z](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.15dv41p9z) ## Description of the data and file structure Prepared April 14, 2026 Data derive from the common garden experiment on Acacia trees at Nelson Mandela - African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania. Seeds were collected in 2022 and the data were collected in 2023 and 2024. All field data derive from the first (“main”) experiment. Users should consult the published article for methodological and other details. Data are available without restrictions; as a courtesy, we ask that users alert the first and last authors and cite the published article in any works arising from reuse of these data. For more information, contact both A.B. Potter ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])) and T. Michael Anderson ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])). ### Files and variables #### File: Acacia_Garden_revised_for_archiving..., ,