Plant community responses to functional group and species removals along biodiversity experiment vegetation transects at the Jornada Basin LTER site, 1997-2002

This dataset contains vegetative cover data of plots that have had
various plant functional groups or species experimentally removed at
the Jornada Basin LTER site in southern New Mexico, USA. This data
was collected with the objective to distinguish the differential
effects of plant community biomass, functional groups, and
biodiversity within functional groups on ecosystem and plant
community function. To make these distinctions, treatments were
established by the selective removal of plant species or functional
groups within experimental plots. There are eight treatments:
control (C, no removals); four functional group removal treatments
(PG, perennial grass removed; S, shrubs removed; SSh, subshrubs
removed; Succ, succulents removed), and three species richness
manipulation treatments. Richness manipulations included a
simplified treatment (Simp), where only the single most abundant
species of each growth form is preserved and all other species in
the growth form are removed, a reduced‐Larrea treatment (rL), where
the Larrea is assumed to be the dominant and is removed while
minority components remain, and a reduced-Prosopsis treatment (rP),
where Prosopis rather than Larrea is removed as the shrub dominant.
Following treatments, vegetative data was collected by sampling each
plot along three transects twice a year (Spring and Fall) for 5
years from 1997-2002 (no data collected in 1998). This data set
consists of the date of collection, plot number, treatment type,
transect number, quadrat number, species codes, two diameters,
height, condition, count, record IDs, and error codes. This study is
complete.