Ephemeral vegetation drivers of occupancy dynamics of Mojave desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii)

Understanding the factors associated with the probability of a species occurring across the landscape has become a foundational component of wildlife management and monitoring. Static factors (e.g., plot characteristics that are consistent across time, such as topography or permanent woody vegetation)are often investigated, but dynamic vegetation factors may also drive apparent occupancy dynamics as energy-minimizing species respond to ephemeral changes in food resources. We analyzed the role of ephemeral forbs and grasses in the occupancy dynamics of Mojave desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), expecting higher occupancy when food plants (forbs) were abundant and lower occupancy when non-food plants (grasses) were widespread. We found that none of the static plot-level factors explained initial occupancy in the first year, but vegetation factors did influence interannual occupancy dynamics. Plots that were unoccupied in a given year were 14.4% less likely to become occupied in the fol..., , # Ephemeral vegetation drivers of occupancy dynamics of Mojave desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii)

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvws](10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvws)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: OpenResearchData__vegannual_longformat.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* Plot: The 4-ha survey plot
* Year: The year of the vegetation survey
* Value: The value of the 'community metric'.
* Community metric: Derived metric; Species richness = number of unique species across all quadrats within the plot, Plant abundance = number of individual plants of each 'plant group' across all quadrats within the plot, and Percent cover = the mean percent cover of each plant group across all quadrats within the plot
* Plant group: Forb (herbaceous) versus grass species

#### File: OpenResearchData__occupancy_vegetation.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* site: Simple integer identifier for each Plot
* Plot: Alphanumeric identifier for eac...,