Climate Variability Experiment: Plant community and productivity data, Sierra Foothills California, 2015-2017

Dataset associated with the manuscript, "Intra-annual precipitation effects on annual grassland productivity and phenology are moderated by community responses" (Shaw et al. 2021). Climate change is causing increased precipitation variability across ecosystems. The size and timing of rainfall events directly and indirectly impact ecosystem functions such as primary productivity. At the Sierra Foothills Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley, California, we experimentally tested how plant communities and their ecosystem functions shift across rainfall conditions using rainout shelters in which we manipulated rainfall amount and timing (early-season fall drought, peak-season spring drought, continuous drought and ambient rainfall) over three years and assessed plant community and productivity responses.