Linking grassland canopy structure and function responses to field experimental drought both seasonally and interannually

Shifts in species composition in water-limited ecosystems such as temperate prairies during summer droughts can lead to community-level changes. In both short-term experimental and long-term drought events, C4 species decline in abundance while C3 species increase, causing reductions in above ground net primary productivity (ANPP). Thus, this study focused on linking experimental drought-induced shifts in species composition with changes in canopy structure and function using remote sensing approaches. We took advantage of a long-term experimental precipitation study in Central Oklahoma that has established a gradient of seven levels of precipitation in a fully factorial randomized block design: −100%, −80%, −60%, −40%, −20% rainfall exclusion, 0% change in precipitation (i.e., control) and precipitation addition +50%. Our aim was to answer the following questions: (1) How does an experimental precipitation gradient impact canopy spectral reflectance both seasonally and interannually? (..., , # Data from: Linking grassland canopy structure and function responses to field experimental drought both seasonally and interannually Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.280gb5n3b](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.280gb5n3b) ## Description of the data and file structure This data was collected at Kessler Atmospheric & Ecological Field Station (KAEFS) located in Central Oklahoma during the summers of 2022 and 2023. Our study site is a temperate mesic grassland and has been part of a long-term drought experiment established in 2016. We have experimentally manipulated precipitation in the field by randomly assigning seven levels of precipitation in a fully factorial randomized block design: −100%, −80%, −60%, −40%, −20% rainfall exclusion, 0% change in precipitation (i.e., control) and precipitation addition +50%. We acquired canopy-level spectral reflectance measurements using an ASD FieldSpec3, which is a hyperspectral sensor that collects data in the full spectrum (350nm – 2500nm). To preserve..., ,